Tuesday, May 26th - Got up around 6:30, grabbed another shower. Overcast and damp (streets wet from overnight rain), but not raining - yet. Mark got up around 7:00, and we decided to go to the Dairy Queen for breakfast, returning around 8:00. No chance to check email this morning. Did our final packup and headed out, with thanks to the hotel proprietor for his courtesy in allowing me extensive use of the Internet computer in the Office.
Our packs did in fact weigh a ton this morning with 5 days food in them. Walked the mile down to the trail, picking it up where I had walked out two days ago (on Sunday afternoon). As expected, the trail was once again a slippery mess, with the brush closely crowding in and everything dripping wet; gonna be another tough hike. Several spots were hard to figure out, it was so overgrown (including with poison ivy) and missing blazes at several critical junctures. We crossed the New River (probably the largest river we have yet crossed), and finally got back to the "real" trail in the trees. We had about a 1500 foot climb to get back on top of the ridgeline, not a killer but a long climb nonetheless. It started raining fairly heavily on the way up, but neither of us elected to put on our rain gear because it was so sultry and we were already sweating pretty hard just doing the hike up. The wind is still blowing tropical moisture directly north from the Gulf of Mexico (a VERY strange weather pattern for this time of the year), and that explained the high humidity, fairly high temperatures, and (of course) all the heavy rains. This weather pattern had started yesterday, and was forecast to continue all week, which wasn't real good news to anyone hiking the A.T.!
Finally reached the Rice Field Shelter (Ed. - a large bald - that's Mark in the picture above "basking like a seal" between storms at the shelter) just before noon; 7 miles down (plus the extra mile of non-A.T. road walking, so 8 miles total for the day). Only one person (female) was there when we arrived (Butter Toes). I grabbed our canteens, including one from Butter Toes, and headed down a VERY long trail down to a spring/creek; the water was a bit discolored from sediment, but that eventually settled out. Various other hikers eventually came in, including Windbreaker and Holdout, but most were heading on to the next shelter (about 12 miles further on), whereas Mark and I were intentionally taking it slow to work his leg back into it gradually (so 7 miles today, 12 tomorrow, then 19, 22, and 13 to get to the 311 road crossing near Roanoke this Saturday).
We got some breaks in the clouds and rain, which enabled us to partially dry some of our stuff (and ourselves) out in the field. Another fairly heavy rain started around 3:00 pm, which put a halt to any further attempts to dry out. Dinner around 6:30. A few more people came in, including Criqui, by about 8:00 pm, so we ended up with 7 people in the shelter (intended for 6, but we made it work). Misty again as it got dark, with a pretty good breeze blowing. Mark's leg (Naproxen, a knee brace, and Icy/Hot patches) seems good, and so I am happy that we stuck with our hiking plan and didn't push on to the next shelter (even though we both felt like we could). My own leg is throbbing a lot less today, but 8 miles isn't too much of a test. The rest of the week will tell me if it's just going to fade away, or be with me for awhile (right now it seems like it's slowly easing, as you'd expect for a bone bruise). Just after we settled in for the night, we had torrential rain and a lot of wind, from 9:30 til 11:00, and a second heavy batch from 1:30 til 3:00, so we were happy to be under cover overnight. Luckily the angle of the wind kept the rain from blowing into the shelter face. But the wind also kept up a constant patter of tree-drip on the top of the shelter, so I didn't sleep all that well. But better than being in a tent, that's for sure.
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