As usual the hiking day started around 7:30 a.m. The rain had stopped so things were looking up . . . about 9:00 it started to sprinkle.
About mid morning they reached the Bears Den Hostel. http://www.bearsdencenter.org/ The Hostel was terrific! They were able to get a cold drink and sit down and rest.
By 11:00 they were back on the trail and just after that it started to down pour. It looks as if they are going to have another ‘just add water’ type of day!
Sidebar: Much of the food they carry is freeze dried. For those of us who are old enough to remember astronauts landing on the moon and Tang® it is all about adding water to powder to make something ‘good’ to eat/drink. Freeze dried food has come a long way since the 1960s and from what I hear some of the food is pretty good. The consensus has been powered eggs still taste bad unless you add a great deal of flavoring, e.g., ketchup or hot sauce.‘Just add water’ hiking is much the same as freeze dried food . . . one or two meals/hikes in the rain aren’t too bad, but experiencing it day after day is like eating powdered eggs! Yuk!
They hiked on to Blackburn Trail Center. This too was supposed to be a staffed shelter . . . the guys were less than impressed. They decided that it was best to stick with their plans and hike to the David Lesser Shelter.
Notable events for the day . . .
At some point Dale realized his glasses fell out of his pocket. He knew he needed to go back and try to find them (Hiking back is not like writing with pencil and erasing it’s more like writing with permanent marker and making a mistake). Ben, being the dutiful son, offered to watch the packs while Dale hiked back to find his glasses. Luckily Dale only had to go back about a half mile. There was some good natured ribbing going on by the time that they called me!
After a hard day at work everyone likes to come home and relax a little, right? Well, the same is true for the guys . . . but there was no rest when they got to the shelter. The water source, a spring, was located a half mile DOWNHILL from the shelter. You might think to yourself . . . how bad could it be; they already hiked 14 miles what’s another .5? Ben reminded me that the water bottles are pretty light walking down, but then you have to carry them back uphill full! I said, “Oh! Sorry about that,” as I went to the kitchen and poured myself a class of water . . . really, I am grateful to be writing this from home!
NEW FLASH! Today marked another milestone . . . they crossed from Virginia to West Virginia! Another state complete!!!!!
14.1 miles today – 151.9 miles completed
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