If I were a mailman, I'd be the best.

Day 53 - 6/6/10
There were a few things I forgot to mention yesterday. One was that
ticks have become much more frequent. I found 3 on me within an hour
of getting into the Shenandoahs. The other was that wild berries are
starting to show up. They are still very small and green, but I did
pluck and eat one ripe blackberry. Gotta love living off the land.

So today started off slowly, for some reason I was very sore. After a
breakfast of oatmeal, coffee, and a banana with Nutella, I packed and
was on my way at 8. I had a short but steep uphill, making it to the
top of Blackrock Mountain at 8:20, and decided it was such a cool spot
that I had to take a break even though I'd only been hiking less than
a 1/2 hour. I climbed up to the top of this rock pile, sat up there
for about 10 minutes taking in the sights, the wind just whipping
around me. Actually it stayed that windy for much of the day.

After leaving I hiked for a while, then stopped at a road crossing to
eat a snack. Within an hour after that break I came upon some awesome
trail magic and stopped again, making a repeat of yesterday's 3 breaks
in the first seven miles. The difference today was these were all good
stops, which brings me back to the trail magic. There was two big bags
of apples, a bag full of Reese's cups & Snickers, and a bunch of cold
sodas. I ate an apple and Reese's instantly, then pocketed a root beer
for later to have with lunch. I wrote up and left a thank you note on
the paper from my Reese's wrapper, thinking maybe whoever provided the
trail magic might come back to make sure no trash was left there, then
continued on.

The time and miles went by quickly, and by 1:00 I had made it to the
first shelter. Ace who I'd met before was there, as well as an older
guy named Dodger, and a girl from Maine named Kumquat. I stayed and
ate lunch, and found out from them that the trail magic I'd gotten was
just the leftovers from a hiker feed shindig the day before.
Apparently a thru-hiker named Hotfoot, different from the one I met
way back at the beginning of my trip, had his parents put it on here
at one of the campgrounds in the park that's close to the AT. Must've
been some party if what I had were leftovers. After eating I stayed
and rested for a while, then left at 2 o'clock, getting some steep
uphill to start with out of the shelter. As I was going up I saw a
deer leap clear across the trail at full speed. It was really neat.

Two miles after I left the shelter I came to a road and saw Dodger
talking to two hikers. One was Hotfoot, and the other was named
Compass. He was laying down with his shoe off, and his ankle was
enormous. He said he slipped and twisted it, and even heard a crunch
sound. It didn't look good, so I guess he's planning on going into
town for a few days. Hope it works out for him.

I started up again, and within an hour the sky began to darken. It was
changing very fast so I knew it was only a matter of time before the
rain started falling. That's when your only thought becomes, "I need
to stop at the next available spot where I can quickly and easily
cover up my pack." You hope for a large boulder or tree stump, or at
the very least a flat open spot, but you also know it's a race against
time. I ended up having to drop my pack into a bunch of plants on the
side of the trail because nothing was coming along that I could prop
my bag on, and I couldn't chance it any longer. I barely got my pack
cover and rain pants on before it started pouring, so thank god I
stopped where I did. It was heavy rain for a solid 20 minutes, and
then lighter rain for a total of 2 hours. Not fun, but at least it
cleared and gave me the chance to cool off a bit. When it did stop I
started noticing a bunch of wild strawberries along the sides of the
trail, and they were just ripe enough to eat. I ate about 8 in total,
a nice booster after getting that blast of rain.

The shelter I planned at staying at came soon after, with several
people already here. I met some new ones, a girl named Whip-er-whil,
and a guy named Caribou and his dog Yolo. He's deaf so Yolo is an
assistance dog. He seems to be very smart too. I cooked up dinner,
ramen with tuna, but burned the noodles so it just tasted burnt and
salty. Not very good. I did eat it all though.

Going to call it an early night. Trying to do 24+ tomorrow, and I plan
on fitting in a few stops to some stores or restaurants they have
along Skyline Drive. Praying for a milkshake at least.

Total miles: 894.5