Day 21 - We don't need no stinking bridges!

June 24, 2009

I packed up all my goodies this morning and headed out.
Rebekah had taken off earlier on a hike of her own so I wasn't able to say good-bye. But, she did leave a note for me so that was nice.
I hiked down to the trail head and for the very first time on this trip, I was able to come face to face with the Appalachian Trail.
It was EXTREMELY muddy and I noticed that this would be quite the test for my Asolo hiking boots.
Other than the CONSTANT trudging through mud bogs it was actually pretty refreshing to NOT have to walk along the side of a road.
After several miles I made it to the Horseshoe Shelter and met a 28 year old hiker named Dan. He cruised passed me earlier this morning. His AT moniker is 'Smokey' and he plans to go all of the way to Georgia. Although, he's tempted to just ditch the trail at some point and head across the country to California. Interesting coincidence don't ya think?
My mission seemed to intrigue him a bit so, hopefully, God's doing some work on him. I guess only time will tell.
It was still so early in the day that I'm pretty sure I made a 'rookie' mistake. I decided to keep hiking and try to make it to the next shelter.
That was not such a great idea.
This is where I found out the difference between miles on the road vs. miles on the AT.
The AT miles take just a 'bit' longer to navigate with a LOT more obstacles.
Now, the first river crossing wasn't too bad. It was definitely a surprise, though, because in my mind, fording a river means that something has gone DRASTICALLY wrong. Apparently it's quite the norm here on the trail. You just keep following those 'white blazes' and suddenly, BOOM, there's a river with more 'white blazes' on the OTHER side.
Did I sign up for this?
So, I took off my boots and socks, put on the Teva's and marched myself through the knee high water. Needless to say, rolling my pant legs up to my knees was a wasted effort.
By the time I came to the next river crossing (regretfully), I was a bit more weary and a lot more stir crazy due to the onslaught of mosquitoes and such.
At this point, I went through the boot removal process again and waded out in the the EXTREMELY swift moving current only to find that it came all of the way up to my 'nether' regions. It was difficult and slow to manage but once I made it to dry land I realized that I was only half-way across the water. Oh boy!
So, back into the 'almost' waist high water I went as it suddenly occurred to me that my sleeping bag and tent are stored on the low end of my pack directly behind my rear. That's what caused me to perk up to my tiptoes, almost get washed down stream and fight my way to the shore where I spent the next 20 minutes warding off the insect swarms and trying to get dry.
Oh, what fun!
Here's where I discovered that I was losing daylight and the 'next shelter' didn't appear to be as close as I had hoped. So, finally, I GAVE UP.
I eventually found a suitable spot along the side of the trail to set up camp and I was MORE THAN happy to crawl inside and be done with the day.
That's when it suddenly occurred to me, "The Appalachian Trail is NOT going to be the quickest way to get to California!"
That's quite an understatement, to be sure.