Transcription of journal page photos can be found below. A more traditional blogpost of this hike can be found HERE along with lots of pictures.
So yesterday: turns out we’re on an unusually dry section of the trail. Hobz took a look at available water stops when we stopped at Watauga Dam. The few springs we would cross looked sketchy, so we filled every bottle and pouch we had from the lake and carried on. That was about 4 liters of water for each of us. By the time we arrived at Vandeventer shelter, we’d drunk about half of that. Reviewing our water options for the next day (being today), we saw our best chance for water would not come for another six miles, so we started to conserve. Breakfast would be dry.
At about 9:30pm, just after we had tucked into our bags, our decision to stop hiking and early and stay at the shelter was doubly justified when a great deluge began. We patted ourselves on the backs and then Dustin hung his 8-liter filter bag from a leaking corner of the shelter gutter and fully refilled our water supply. Wet breakfast for everyone!
Okay now for today’s ‘s Stats:
- Trail Map Says: 10.7 miles
- Laura’s Watch Says: 12.32 miles
- Elevation Gain: 2,289 feet
- Elevation Loss: 2,133 feet
- Start Time: 8:43am
- End Time: 4:20pm
- Active Hiking Time: 5:40
- Average Pace: 27:39!
- Average Heart Rate: 123 bpm (high 153bpm)
- Total Calories Burned: 3,031
Our goal of leaving the shelter by 7:30 this morning got us out the not-door by 8:43. It’s nice to know Hobz is okay with our less-than-stellar launch habits. The day was pretty much perfect for hiking, with kind temperatures and even a light breeze from time to time. My legs cooperated and my tiny heart played nice. Big, fuzzy bumblebees that sounded like jet planes provided trail music from the rhododendron bush flowers. We stopped for our first break in the spot where we would have camped last night – a damp little crease between the hills – and congratulated our selves again on our wisdom in stopping early.
“Ooh, I feel crunchy today,” I said as I stretched out on a damp log. Hobz replied, with my favorite quote of the day:
“Crunchy in your clothes, or your soul?” (Actually, I meant my bones. I never did find out what it means to be crunchy in one’s soul.)
We carried on to Iron Mountain shelter, which would have been the halfway point of today’s hike, for lunch. There we met the very first other backpacker we’ve seen since we started. He was out with his giant, friendly, unleashed dog, and seemed rather adrift, both location ally and metaphysically.
Over lunch, Dustin raised the possibility of stopping at 11 miles rather than 14 in exchange for getting to sleep in real beds and have showers that aren’t cloud-sponsored. We would only make up one of our four lost miles, but… showers. We were all feeling pretty crunchy in our clothes after yesterday, not to mention sticky and…. fragrant. Hobz, ever-flexible, allowed us to persuade him.
In the last 4.5 miles of our newly-shortened hike, the trail mushrooms proved especially bountiful. On most trails, it’s wildflowers that get my attention, but we seem to have missed that season. Mushrooms, on the other hand, abound in great variety, and I’ve taken to collecting their photos. The most flamboyant of all is the chicken-of-the-woods, a red-and yellow shelf mushroom growing on oak trees, looking more cartoon than real.
Incidentally, this is one of the three wild mushrooms (along with morels and oysters) that I can definitively identify as edible. They have no near-look-alikes. I know this, and yet I’ve never actually tasted one, because as far as I can tell, they grow in don’t the Black Hills. So toward the end of our day’s hike, I gave into temptation and picked a few to add to the evening’s dinner.
I did spend a little time on the internet once we got here to make really, really sure I wasn’t wrong about them (I wasn’t), then I borrowed some butter from a friendly guy named Max and fried them up in our camp stove.
Guys! They taste just like chicken!!
They were super tasty, and an excellent addition to our pesto-chicken dinner pouch. However, heeding the internet’s warning that some few people might have a mild digestional disagreement upon first eating, we did not eat our whole supply. I offered a few to Max, in repayment for use of his butter, and discovered he knows a lot about mushrooms.
He also has lots of opinions on the state of the world and its governments. He has some grand ideas on how to fix it, which seem to do mostly with not paying taxes, and which seem to have gotten him kicked off social media. After half an hour’s discussion, Hobz sent me a text asking if he should leave and then give me a call to provide a way to gracefully detangle. Kind gesture! Fortunately, laundry provided a natural way when it was needed. He was a fascinating person, even though (or because?) he kept saying things like, “… we just can’t let the feds find out!”
And now, to bed early, in real beds, maybe with a little bendryl assist because I have earned all the Zs.
Thither & Yon 