Hours Hiked: ZERO!
I woke up this morning, fully intending to hike. But then I walked as far as the Rocking Chair Privy and decided that I didn't want to walk today. So I checked my food to be sure I could wait another day before getting more, then I crawled back into my sleeping bag. The three men in the shelter packed up and started walking.
At 10:30 two brothers stopped in, they were North bound. Oh- some vocabulary for you. If you are hiking less than the 2,200 miles of the A.T. then you are called a "Section Hiker". If you parked your car somewhere and you'll go back to it tonight, then you are a "Day Hiker". If you plan to hike the whole trail then you have some options...I start in Maine and go to Georgia, so I am a SouthBounder, or "SoBo", and I am also a Mega-Maine to Georgia, "ME-GA". Others are "NoBo" and "GA-ME" if they started in the south. Or you are an "Alternative Hike" That is, you are going to finish the whole trail in less than 365 days, but not end-to-end, maybe you start in the middle, hike to the end, fly to the other end and hike back to the middle where you started. These hikers are "Flip-Flops".
Later Lynn and Dave hiked by. They didn't know I'd be at the shelter, they just stopped there for a morning snack. We chatted and they kept hiking. A fun thing about the A.T. is that there is little cell service out here, so for a society that is used to relying on texting we have to actually talk to each other. The oral information flying up and down the corridor is very cool. So you might send messages to your friends ahead of you by way of a faster hiker. Or you might ask hikers coming towards you when and where they saw your friend so you know if you can catch up that day. It's fun. And it is surprisingly accurate.
Then two men hiked in to fix the Rocking Chair Privy. They worked for a couple of hours and hiked back out to their car.
Then Rafiki came. Rafiki is 53. She started section hiking the Appalachian Trail in 1984 and by the time you read this she will have climbed Katahdin, completing all 2,000+ miles. She is a firecracker, and we had a blast. She skipped into the shelter and yelled out-'Hey! I hear there is a woman here taking a zero day! I love you! Dave and Lynn said you're great!' And then we talked and talked. She has a master in social work and developed a low ropes/high ropes family therapy course. She has two amazing children who are now about 19 and 25, I think. They were planning to come meet her so they could be there when she climbed Katahdin. (Dad-you'll love this)-when her children were small she and her husband had a boat and the four of them lived in the tropics for three years. We were fast friends. And then she told me that two more women were headed our way!
Sure enough, after a couple hours Shelter Virgin and SoHo showed up. Shelter Virgin is a 30-something year old music-teacher-turned-financial-computer-guru. She has gracefully accompanied important people as they die and was full of warmth and life. Shelter Virgin is from Maine and invited me to stay with her when I hike to the New Hampshire border! I can't wait to see her again. SoHo is a 69 year old woman from Ohio who hikes as often as she can and we all had trouble keeping up with her. Shelter Virgin and SoHo met on WhiteBlazes.com, an on-line forum for hikers to share information and find each other for hikes. And since I've introduced them, I'll introduce me: They decided that I am a cute, special fugitive. But I didn't do anything wrong. These three women lifted my spirits and helped me remember how to be vibrantly alive. Thank you, Rafiki, Shelter Virgin and SoHo.
Here we are, Fugitive, Rafiki, SoHo, and Shelter Virgin
p.s. Thank you, Glasses, for stopping in to snack and take this picture for us.
No comments:
Post a Comment