I love lakes.

Day 81 - 7/7/10
I didn't mention this yesterday, but the guy's name whose house I
stayed at was John and his wife's name was Susan. It's kind of funny
how I ran into an Aunt Mary earlier around Front Royal, and then
stayed at a place where the couples names are the same as my other
aunt and uncle. You must all be willing it to happen or something. So
please, keep it coming!

Had a nice sleep on his couch, then woke up around 6:30 to pancakes
with maple syrup, toast, cereal, and orange juice. He carbed us up
good. Then he shuttled us to the trailhead in shifts. I was in the
first load. The five miles from where he dropped us off to NY 17 was
very rocky, with lots of steep rockclimbing. But it was fun, and there
were nice breezes blowing every so often. I took a break on one
mountain in a shady spot, and the breeze through there was fantastic.

After 17 there was a big climb, about 600 ft. up to the Lemon
Squeezer. That was basically a giant cluster of ginormous rocks full
of tricky crevices that you have to navigate through. It was so rough
that there was one section where you could take an "easy trail", which
I ended up using, and that was still hard. Although it was tough, it
was still a lot of fun. From there it was a little more then 3 miles
to Lake Tiorati Circle, a small lakeside park where you can swim and
BBQ. Obviously none of us hikers can do the grilling, but it's nice to
enjoy a cool lake to swim in, plus there's vending machines with cold
soda and ice cream. I had a nice refreshing can of coke. Ahhh. Then I
went fora dip in the lake. Equally as refreshing as the coke I'd say.
Cooled me right down.

I stayed at the park until 5ish, eating some snacks, swimming a couple
more times, and doing some good old fashion hanging out. I wanted to
let the temp drop a bit before I continued on, and I'm glad I did
because by 5 I could definitely notice a difference. It wasn't cool by
any means, but it was cooler than it had been during the day. I hiked
the 4.2 to the next shelter moderately fast, mostly because I was
considering going to the one after that and I didn't have all that
much daylight left. I saw The Crusher leaving the shelter as I showed
up, and I knew he was planning on the next one, so I didn't break and
instead tried to catch him. He's 6'4" so he disappeared fast. Not
stopping to break caught up with me, and I started getting really
tired and hungry fast. I made it to the top of Black Mountain and
hopped off the trail into a blueberry patch 50 ft. away or so. Found a
nice flat spot and decided to call it home for the night. The breeze
is really nice up here, so I'm happy.

I made dinner after setting up my tent, and in the distance I could
see a couple deer grazing. I hope I'm not stomping on their grounds. I
thought I heard them making funny noises, almost like they were
peeved, although I'm basing this on zero knowledge of deer behavior.
It's about nine now, so I'll be getting to bed soon then hopefully
have an early wake up tomorrow. It's supposed to be "cooler", yet
still in the 90's. This is getting to be too much. Too much I say!

One last thing. Earlier on in my day there was a point where I saw
loads of tiny toads all over the trail. At least 50 little buggers
hopping around everywhere. On top of that there seemed to be hundreds
of daddy longlegs in the same vicinity. It was all very peculiar.

Total miles: 1385.8