Day 18: Clarendon Shelter to Greenwall Shelter

I feel kind of slow and heavy today, so I take it easy. I find that one day of pushing and walking as fast/far as I can (this is, of course, all relative) then one day of bumbling along taking snack breaks and photos as I like is a good kind of push-pull rhythm so I'm not getting super sore or achy.

It's dry and sunny and rather bonny again.

I photographed this bridge because it's exactly the width of my pack. I squeezed across hoping nothing would get dislodged and tumble into the river. A couple of northbound gents asked if I was going to Georgia. Ha.

Birch-tree notation:

I smelled smoke. Something was going on in the valley. If I'd been driving I'd never have noticed.

I sat and snacked and watched a tiny plane descend to meet its own shadow on a light-grey runway.

Then it was into the achy-feet, keep-going afternoon. A Euro-accented dude asked me how far a shelter was, and I replied with a string of those English idioms that are totally imprecise and vague ("Oh, no distance at all"; "couple of hundred yards maybe"; "you're right there"). Blah blah. I want to precision up my language.

I spend some time macro-photoing a toad-or-frog. Reliably, I have total solitude on the trail until I get into an awkward hunched-over macro-photo position. Then other hikers arrive and I try to explain that I'm taking photos not being a weirdo.

I wish I knew more about mushrooms:

and berries:

I do know not to eat mysterious stuff in the wild, though my food bags are starting to look a little empty.

White blaze for LT, black blaze a mystery:

I crossed a road in the late afternoon, and there was a long old climb up into the woods. An unexpected waterfall alleviated some of my tired grumpiness:

I hunched over macro-photoing a maple-leaf Jamaican flag I had ideas about turning into a logo for a certain musical project o'mine. Two hikers appeared. "I'm, um, photographing leaves!" was my helpful explanation. Yes, leaves I'd OCD-ily arranged myself.

Greenwall shelter was a half-mile off the trail, but worth the detour. I'm always quick on the spur trails down to a shelter -- my legs get on an auto-cycle as soon as I sense the "finish line" to the day.

So, Greenwall was an open shelter. I didn't want to spend the extra time in the morning dealing with a tent, but I hadn't slept alone in an open shelter that didn't have high bunks yet. Lying down just-above-ground-level with toes to the bears was not yet in my comfort zone, at all. I literally told myself to grow up and stop being an irrational wuss. Hung my food, made a fire, was pretty thrilled to find "trail magic" hanging in the shelter -- three packs of Ramen. What was most exciting was that one was "Oriental" flavour -- I'd been eating "Chicken" or "Beef" on a dull rotation. In the event, "Oriental" was a similar mix of salt and MSG, but it was what passed for excitement in the culinary sphere today.

I lay down in my sleeping bag and thought about bears. I reminded myself that I drive on I-89 through the winter, and that's more dangerous than bears. Cinched the bag shut over my face so I couldn't see any bear that mysteriously decided I was more interesting than food bags.

Then I started thinking: what if A Person arrives down the trail in the dark? My mind went off on a brief axe-murderer tangent, then I reminded myself that 1) it would be a very diligent axe-murderer who would hike multiple miles off the road carrying a heavy weapon uphill, and 2) I drive on I-89 in the winter. There's no rational reason to  get wound up about axe-murderers. Got to keep things in relative-risk perspective.

I'm not going to say I slept amazingly, but I did sleep. I was woken not by a bear or a marauder, but by a woodpecker in the just-dawn banging out rudimental patterns, unseen, on a tree high above my head.