Trail entry #2
March 26, 2003
Today's miles: 12
Trip miles: 18.3
Destination: Route 653 shelter area

Last night was very relaxing. Mike and I lay in the shelter, babbling as the sun set, watching the fire in the fireplace a few feet in front of us. I listened to the embers sizzle for a while before falling asleep. I woke up only once before dawn, when the wind picked up and blew directly into the shelter. I scrunched down into my sleeping bag, rolled over since the side I'd been lying on was numb, and drifted off again to the sound of the creek and a shelter mouse gnawing on the wood somewhere above me.

I awoke at 6:30 to gray skies and chilly air, and started up the 1200-foot climb at eight o'clock, with Mike not far behind. Just as I reached the ridge at about nine, the rain began and I got cold. There's heat in the feet, I figured, and picked up my pace. But my assumption was wrong this time. My t-shirt and shorts didn't cut it at all, but I was too cold to stop and change clothes ... which makes little to no sense at all, I know. I thought I'd seen on the map that there was a shelter at the 12-mile point (six miles into today's hike), but I realized I was mistaken when I saw mile marker 14. I'd missed 12 and 13, and there had been no shelter. So I continued walking, cold and soaked.

The LHHT is generally well-maintained, but being so early in the year, I guess no trail work has been done since last fall. There are numerous blowdowns from winter storms, and many of those blowdowns brought down a lot of green briar with them. So I did a lot of oo! oo! oo-ing and have a nice pattern of scratches on both legs.

By the time I reached mile 15, I think I was mildly hypothermic, thanks to my own stupidity, of course. I was getting clumsy, often tripping over sticks that would get caught between the back of one leg and the front of the other, since I was dragging my feet. But I kept on moving, periodically asking myself, "You okay, Deb?" and hearing, "Yep, mm-hm, sorta. Just hurry up!"

Finally, I heard Mike yell from up ahead, "Mile 18 is right here!" Normally, I would have picked up speed to get to the shelter, get my pack off, and warm, dry clothes on, but I could just barely shove the next foot forward. I covered the last six-tenths of a mile in something like a half-hour. (My watch stopped at 10:30 this morning, because it got too wet. The thing made it through my A.T. thru-hike, then dies on the second day of the LHHT. Go figure.)

Obviously, the first thing I did when I got to the shelter was change clothes and get into my sleeping bag, but it took at least an hour for me to warm up. Mike built a fire before he'd changed his own clothes, while I managed to cook a hot meal, still bundled in my sleeping bag, on knees and forearms on the shelter platform. While I ate, I sat on the edge of the shelter, with my face close to the fire. My sleeping bag got pretty hot on the outside, as I finally warmed up on the inside. At last, I was able to get out of the bag and make a trip to the potty and to gather more (wet) firewood. By then, we had enough hot coals to burn anything.

The sun has just about set now. The rain has stopped, and the sky is mostly clear. Mike just added more wood to the fire, and I'm comfortable. Rain or shine, I won't be hiking in just a t-shirt and shorts tomorrow. I'd rather sweat profusely than have another day like today. But if Mike's weather forecast is correct, I'll be needing those layers for the rest of the trip.

--Ramkitten