Some rambling thoughts and events from today...
While I was cooking dinner last night a fifth hiker arrived at the shelters. His name was Rocket. He slept in the other shelter.
This morning I met the other two people in the other shelter and it turned out that they were the two kids whose parents had dropped them off yesterday morning as I was leaving the parking lot at Penn Mar.
I've met several thru-hikers all of which started in Georgia. In order to get here from Georgia they started in February burr…
Today I stopped and talked to three hikers of my own age that were slack packing the Appalachian Trail. Slack packing is where you use one or more cars to hike the Appalachian Trail without carrying a backpack. Some people have two hikers that hike in opposite directions and swap keys in the middle, some people hitchhike, some people pay drivers to shuttle them around and some of them have a spouse that drive them.
The Trail Guide indicated that when I got to Caledonia State Park, the campground was right next to the Appalachian Trail. When I got there, no campground was in sight, the pool area was closed, the snack bar was closed and it was a long walk to the park office that was also closed. There was no map to the campground and there were no instructions on how to register. I asked several park visitors where the campground was and finally heard that it was a mile up the road. A park ranger drove past and I waved him down and he told me that the campground really was a mile away and that he could bring me an envelope to register. He directed me to hike up a long gravel road that was gated closed. I humped the extra mile up to the campground and directly into the showers. I spent quite a bit of time there. When I finish showering I set up camp and never did see the Ranger and camped for free.
Alongside the trail inside Caledonia State Park was a beautiful trout stream. Just as I approached, a fisherman pulled a small trout out of the river and was showing it to His companion.
The campground showers were nice and hot but I had to keep pressing a button to get the water to stay on for 20 seconds each time. I brought my dirty clothes in the shower with me and washed them too.
Before I left on this trip I took many practice hikes carrying my backpack. I even gave my backpack a name. I call him Sam McGee. That name comes from the poem “The Cremation of Sam McGee”. There's a couple of lines in it that remind me of my backpack. Taking some literary license... here are the lines:
Every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow; O God! how I loathed the thing.
Hikers on the Appalachian Trail seemed to live a different life than the ones that they do at home. Typically, they give each other nicknames to reflect this new life. However, if you wait for someone else to give you a nickname you might be stuck with something you don't like. So these days hikers often and give themselves a nickname. My wife chose SciFi for me, for obvious reasons. I told her that if my name was SciFi hers must be Fantasy. But she was having no part of that. Her trail name is White Dove. I wish she could have made this trip with me.
Yesterday, I crossed a highway where there was a picnic table. A through hike was just getting getting underway. He told me that he had spent some time in town and was getting back on the trail again. His name was Tigger and he'd started in Georgia. He quickly outpaced me and I didn't see him the rest of the day. Today when I woke up, I discovered that that's who was sharing the shelter with me.
View from my sleeping bag inside the shelter
Fog all day
The snoring shelter
The no snoring shelter
Covered pallivan between the shelters
Cooking dinner
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