Project Eveningland

7/1/2023 Saturday

The bunks in the thru-hiker cabin at Mohican aren’t just narrow; they are also short. Are these child-sized mattresses?! I am a full grown man!

It’s fine. It’s clean. I got an early start. On my way out of camp, an older man who looked to be “in charge” gave me a friendly reminder to take it easy today on account of the air quality, which sucks.

The haze did disperse the sunlight somewhat, though the day was still uncomfortably warm, the air often stagnant and heavy with moisture.

The bugs are bad here. They were especially terrible at one of the water sources near the end of the day. I watched as a man dressed in all black strayed to the wrong part of a stagnant pond. He became engulfed by a cloud of tiny insects and was reduced to a dry, bleached skeleton in a matter of minutes. The other hikers vomited and ran in terror as the man’s bones fell to the ground in a musical tumble. Later I learned that he was a Supreme Court justice, and that that particular breed of mosquito can smell intellectual dishonesty.

Speaking of bugs, I saw a large brown centipede turned upside down and struggling in the middle of the trail. All those legs and it can’t turn over? Could be a trap, I thought.

In a large boggy lake bordered by beaver dams, I watched a massive dragonfly with a bright turquoise bum flit about. I’d have called the species Ceruleanus Badonkus.

Later I was visited by a scarlet tanager. I saw some more brightly colored growth—yellow this time.

The rocks came back. This afternoon they were endless, and the struggle was compounded by an unnervingly brushy trail—though I only pulled one tick off my ankle today. I felt hard done by and unusually sore and tired after a 15 mile day.

It might have been dehydration. I walked out of the cabin this morning with two liters and was able to cobble together maybe 3/4 of a liter from a brown creek with very light flow more than ten miles in. The end-of-day shelter—Brink Road—has a nice little spring. It was tough to fill from but at least it was clear (free from tannins). A half green, half brown frog hopped into the spring and out of sight.

The mosquitos got worse at dinner time. I was relieved to climb into my tent to write at the end of the day. Tomorrow there’s a shelter at a really nice distance—just shy of 13 miles.

We should get a break from rocks soon. All our hopes.