Project Eveningland

5/4/2023 Thursday

As Spotter drove the old hostel van to the bridge to drop me off, I felt glad to be getting back to the trail—a sign that the rest was sufficient. Today was a day of highs and lows.

The trail stays nearly level for two miles until it reaches John’s Hollow Shelter, right next to a rushing creek. I stopped for a very leisurely and extended snack break. I sat staring up at a tulip poplar that towers over the shelter next to it, swaying gently in the wind. AT shelters have a different feel to me now. They’ve become homier, soothing even. Late morning and afternoon, they are quiet, ageless, dignified places—bearing in silence the marks and dirt from thousands of hikers over decades of use. They have a smell. They have a feel.

From there the trail begins a long uninterrupted ascent, another stegosaurus-ridge climb up an apparently endless number of switchbacks. I saw the radar dome (or doppler or whatever it is) atop Apple Orchard Mountain, now tiny and only just barely visible.

Along the first ridge walk after the long ascent there are wonderful campsites with views so enticing I thought about stopping, but I don’t have the water and I’ve got a fair few miles to do over the next five days.

I stopped for a late lunch at Salt Log Gap during which Ben and I chatted on the phone for a while. It’s easier to talk at lunch because you’re in one spot. Assuming it’s a good spot, being stationary spares one the annoyance of asking, “can you hear me ok?” over and over.

I’d been in a great mood all day. The unstructured mileage—I planned to hike however long I wanted—gave the day a lazy, summer-y feel.

Until some stomach issues I’ve been having absorbed my attention, to put it mildly. I’m doing my best, trying some new strategies and different food, but by the time I got close to the shelter at 11 miles, I knew it was going to be a shorter day. As I put it to Chowder the other night, my circumstances have been such that camping near a privy is “expedient and humane.” Sigh. I have hit my stride in so many ways, but lately it seems there’s always some problem to deal with.

I won’t reach 800 until tomorrow. This puts me behind where I want to be, but what can you do? I’m camped at Punch Bowl Shelter in George Washington National Forest. There’s a “swampy area” in front of the shelter according to the app, but there’s been enough rain to turn it into a respectable pond. Only one other person at the shelter, Poppins (not Mary Poppins; a different hiker). Her sweet white poodle is sleeping next to her in the shelter. I’m tented just uphill.

I hope that stopping early won’t doom me to a rushed hike on account of my tummy troubles, my GI jumble, my belly imbroglio. I have lodging reserved in Waynesboro that I’d very much like to stay in, seeing as how it’s non-refundable.

Halfway through writing this my sleeping pad burst. A big old tear, about an inch long. I guess things can always get worse! I put patches and glue and everything else I have on it by the light of my headlamp but it’s unlikely to hold. Patches never work very well. Could be a rough, cold night. A sleeping pad is necessary for insulation, as well as cushion.

I will have to see what can be done tomorrow. Multiple options for resolving the problem are running through my mind, but none can be pursued tonight. Not the best state in which to wind down and sleep.

[Morning update: patch held, will try to find someone to pay to bring me a new pad.]