Rhododendron Gap,
Fat Man’s Squeeze and Wilburn Ridge.
My nose was runny.

Whitetop Mountain, Va.

6/14
Woke to less rain this morning.
No discernible breakfast, not even tea. Hadn’t even had a jones for coffee at this point. I packed up the tent and re-loaded my pack as fast as I could and set off with Almanac and a few others to go help filter water at Thomas Knob shelter as well as use the privy (Bears do it in the woods. Fredlet is not a bear.)
Otter was in the shelter with his wonderful dog Mac, who thumped his tail at us a couple of times to say “Hi! Hi! Hi! I need to stay here by my sick human.” I’m surprised mom showed serious restraint not going over to commune with the puppy since I know she was having puppy withdrawal (as I was have the same without a cat to play with). Anyway, Otter wasn’t feeling well, so we tried to be quiet, but you know after a while that 12 chicas are going to be noisy while filtering water. Ah well, we got out of there fairly quickly.
Tooter’s camelbak had failed (remember, that is a generic term, I don’t know what brand she had) so we gave her two teeny little bottles washed out after containing food things. Mom would have given her the 3L we had, but there was a chance that I had a sip from it and neither she nor we wanted to chance the cootie transfer.
Typically if someone is cranky or out of sorts, it is because they are somewhat dehydrated. “Bite and suck!” lets them know to drink. The thing is Tooter is one who drinks something on the order of 5-6L of water a day and this tiny amount was really affecting her. We just kept an eye on her and things worked out ok.
It was somewhat level for the first hour or so, but then we got into some serious climbing. It wasn’t shaping up to be as long as the day before, but the grubby factor was starting to wear on me a bit.
Tricky was sweep today, so I chatted on and off with her (on when the climb was uphill and off when mom kept her standard pace on the level or the downhill and I channeled Speed Racer.)
I felt a tiny hunger twitch about mid-morning, but it was curious rather than insistent and went away before lunch. Frankly, when I did eat it made me kinda queasy and lethargic, so I wasn’t terribly upset.
Deep Gap and Elk garden passed in a blur. I do have pictures, but not nearly as many as I normally take owing to the fact that I was desperately trying to reinforce that Tricky and Almanac’s decision to let me stay with the group wasn’t a mistake or resent the bejeezus out of me for slowing them down.
In fact, I did end up hiking pretty clippily on the level/moderate rolling hills/downhill sections. I was even alone for about an hour at one point.
Occasionally, I would catch a glimpse of the Wanderer/Flame/Hollywood bunching only to lose sight of them around a curve.
It was QUIET.
I really liked it, though often I would steadily grow paranoid about channeling Chicken John and losing the trail. For the most part, the trail is easily discernible, clear and obvious, but I did lose the trail once with Almanac (going across rocks on Wilburn Ridge where a tree obscured the blaze from me and Almanac was behind me and caught it.)
I did manage to keep to the trail on my hour or two solo jaunts. My paranoia meter spiking then resetting to zero after seeing the next blaze in the distance. I think I’d be ok on my own, but I’d probably need someone to talk to once in a while.
Mom said the same thing about her solo forays when she would walk ahead, stop for a break, then resume when she could hear me and Almanac coming up from behind on the trail.
The weather was still very good; cool and low humidity. I drank an entire 2L camelbak a day and sweat it all out as well. It made for cold rest stops when I took off my pack (my back would get really cold with the quick dry shirts I had on and if I put on my jacket I would just get all over soggy.) So I tended to put my bandanna (both still pee free*) over my back or sit (or even stand) with my pack still on.
I think I was more irritated and tired if I took my pack off rather than when I did like everyone who flopped down on the ground sans pack. Really, breaks were kind of unnecessary for me on the longer scale that everyone else wanted. I liked taking a short breather after a hill or a set of steps (the things that really kicked my ass were when I had big steps up) then continuing. Lunch was in irritant (none of that pesky food for me, thanks ever so…). Taking off shoes made my feet hurt and anything longer than 5 minutes made me antsy and stiff. I as a study in contrariness-but nothing unusual there. I never have liked what works for other people.
As we made it to Elk Garden we ended up at the top of a hill surveying the wild animals (OK…cows) and a road.
Roads close to the trail kinda freaked me out. You’d be walking along in that lovely little silent and insulated trail (with very little sound-even the birds and other forest-y type animals were quiet) and the roar of a V6 comes to you as a car drives past that you can’t see. Tres disconcerting.
About halfway through lunch, a troop of boy scouts (well, we assumed they were boy scouts) were deathmarched through our picnic area at the top of the hill.
When their pack leader said hi to Tricky, she asked about their trip and it turned out they were planning to stay on Whitetop Mountain tonight (just like us)… actually, just in the clearing just below Whitetop Mountain (just like us).
“Race ya!” I think Hollywood said.
Tricky looked startled, but didn’t really say much else. After lunch though she switched to lead position from sweep so that if we needed to find an alternate site, she could use her knowledge of the trail to pick out a good spot.
Hollywood’s boots had given up the ghost at this point and during lunch (while Touque made freakin’ phone calls on her Canadian cell phone – while the American ones had NO SIGNAL. We suck!) we wrapped Hollywood’s feet in bags the strapped her Tevas on to keep her socks dry since it looked like it was going to rain. I loaned her my Mistral gaiters and the looked like spats on her feet. I have called them ‘spats’ ever since.
We finished up lunch and walked down the hill, crossed the road, (past the boys-yeah, we could totally take ’em.) and back into the deep forest.
The boy scouts passed Almanac and myself about halfway up the climb to camp in the afternoon portion and we looked at each other with a bit of trepidation since we didn’t know if they were going to take our camping spot.
Funnily enough, they kept the same pace all the way uphill and didn’t look the worse for wear. But mom told me later that while she was in one of her solo jaunts she rounded a bend and came up on them during a rest break. When they saw her, they sat up from their previous hang-dog slumped over posture to sitting upright looking like they just were casually resting from a stroll int he woods.
They did end up making camp just a little farther north of their original location…and looked a little bit squished in that spot.
It was very nice of them to do so.
Last chance at a trash can for a while – and this one curiously looked like a teeny tiny hatch from “Lost” that we unceremoniously dumped our ziplocs o’ refuse, then started the uphill climb to Whitetop Mountain.
So much for keeping up with the group. The first part of the day was nice; I was generally *right there* with the group but back to peanut-ing nontheless.
Almanac, despite the sneakiness on my part for adding my GPS to my load, would ask (when I would ask to gain perspective on our ETA) what the GPS said. It was very useful. I did tell Almanac that with me, realistic estimates was better. If you tell me its just a little bit more and you keep saying that for 2 hours, I will be cranky. If you tell me it is difficult and will take more than an hour, I set my expectations and just deal. Happily, she kept to that.
I was actually surprised at how quickly we got to the camping spot despite the fact that the altitude or whatever seemed to really be affecting me. Still no whining on my part though. I kept my sense of humor (no sarcasm-which can descend pretty quickly into a rant) and was still enjoying myself. Obviously, not having a cold would have been better, but I still loved being out on the trail.

Campsite off of Whitetop Mountain

It did rain on us while we put up our tents this evening. I was already sweaty/wet from the solid uphill we had all afternoon, so by the time I got my shell on after pulling the tent out and putting my pack under it for a measure of dryness, was cold and clammy. Mom and I put up the tent and did camp things til they were done, then we both decided to get inside the tent and got inside our bags to warm up. It took a little while for me to get warm. I changed into warmer things in stages as they dried (or more realistically, when I was ready to move.)
I ended up in my rain pants, long undies (hooray for SmartWool!) a drier shirt, two pairs of socks, the hood up on my Marmot jacket and my hat with the little ear flaps pulled down for warmth. I may have even put on my gloves.
I felt a little better at least.
Everyone was crowded under a tarp we put up to cover the cooking area, so I sat around the edges against a tree while it poured down rain. I did get a bit wet, but I had an idea. I went and got my pack cover and put it over my shoulders and then sat on the bottom part then hooked the strap around my waist…an Osprey Turtle. For sitting on the wet ground and leaning against a tree. Kept me dry at least and held in place reasonably well.
We ate – or rather, everyone else ate and I drank a cup of soup and had 7 M&M’s (I counted).
I was feeling especially craptacular and the really cold weather didn’t help much. I didn’t want anything in particular except a shower. I was probably rancid at this, however, happily *I* couldn’t smell me.
Everyone else was dreaming of cheeseburgers or Starbucks, but I still wasn’t hungry. Hot water and a scrub brush, thankyouverymuch.
We had pitched the tent on a downhill slope… it was the best we could do for the site… but it was a noticeable one and it kept us skootching back up onto our sleeping pad all night.
I tend to wake up to roll over or re-position (some nights I just woke up due to the screaming of my muscles) but this night was the worst night for sleeping of the whole week. It was cold, it rained incessantly (though we did stay dry) and I kept having to haul my ass back up to the top of the tent. I thought it might be helpful for draining the sinuses a bit, but it did nothing and made sleep impossible.
A few people moved their tents to the meadow up the hill, and while I thought that sounded like a good idea in theory, I don’t know that you could have prised me from my sleeping bag for anything. Mom said “screw that” as well and we stayed put. The rain didn’t bother us too much (or the drippings from the trees) but the flat of the meadow might have been nice.
Skootch.
Skootch.
Skootch.

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