app trail day 3

Day 3                                                                                                                                                                  9/14/10

North Fork of Piney River to Cow Camp Gap Shelter (10 miles)

Seth and I just checked each other for ticks- doesn’t get more romantic than that unless he wants to check my head for lice and eat the rewards.

So the morning (10 AM) starts off with Seth telling me he had a dream about me penetrating Xena the Warrior princess … then off to poop-hopefully this becomes the scheduled once-daily, and then we had peaches and cream oatmeal-yum. We packed up and started at noon thirty. We need all that sleep for how much work we do all day. We did 10 miles today. I am pooped I keep hearing an owl hoot. I can stand the bird/bug medley, but the owl is annoying me now.

So the beginning of the hike had a tiny bit up and down but mainly level ground. Seth was nice enough to take a lot of weight off my pack and into his. Then I put dirty clothes on my shoulder and my butt to ease the soreness the packs had caused so far. This and the less weight made it a lot easier. We were in high hopes and making good timing, but of course towards the end, I had run out of steam.

It’s kind of weird the stuff you think about when you’re on the trail. I know I think about this kind of stuff everyday, but when you’re trekking along not making idle conversation with only the wind howling (awesome, cool wind) and the rustling of the leaves beneath your feet, you really notice what you think about. I went everywhere from Social Darwinism to the Sappir-Whorf Hypothesis to Reading Rainbow (“but don’t take my word for it”). The songs you get stuck in your head boggle you too. Today what kept me going was the Bedroom Intruder song “Hide your kids, hide your wife, and hide you’re your husband cuz…”Yesterday I had “Buffalo Soldier” and a few other good ones. Seth just whistles to himself. I suck at whistling, but I can snap. Some people can’t snap and when people that can snap hear that, they start snapping. I guess they want to make sure that they haven’t lost their snapping capabilities.

The first view we got to was “Wolf Rocks” We posed like wolves howling at the moon. We had to climb the rock to see the view. We saw two hawks flying above-Seth and me don’t you know. I had a window cubicle that I used to stare out of in between spreadsheets and I used to envy the birds flying free in the distance. They knew what it was all about. Then we went uphill forever to “Hog Camp.” I lead the whole way and was on fire. Today we stepped out of the wilderness quite a bit. Usually we are in shady wilderness all day, but today we saw the sun a lot between travelling on some roads and the open fields. Even saw a truck today. On our way up the windy ascent, it was so sunny and there were so many butterflies flying and momentarily resting on the tall grasses under the blue sky. It looked like where someone would retreat to in their minds if someone were to tell them to go to their “happy place.” We got up to the top of “Hog Camp/ Tar Jacket Ridge” and enjoyed the sun while eating prosciutto and mashed potatoes with gravy mmm. Super filling, but you know I ate it all. Seth pointed out that we were eating hog (prosciutto and bacon bits) on hog mountain. For that picture, I posed like a piggy that didn’t want to “squeal like a piggy.” Some guy walked by.  After lunch, I was feeling a bit sluggish. We supposedly had 3 miles left to go, which turned into something like 5. We walked through some more fields and saw another hiker at camp. I’ve seen 5 people since we’ve been here- same amount as the number of black people at JMU-not including the football team. We had to walk a mile (there and back) off the trail to get water. The water tasted like dirt but whatever. Then we hiked through “Cow Camp Gap” and hiked up to “Cold/Cole Mountain.” Oh my gosh, that view was amazing-gorgeous. Cole/Cold mountain (It has 2 names) and Spy Rock are easily may faves so far. It was beautiful. Right in front of us, there were layers of monutains upon mountains like a painting with all distinct shades of blue with the sky just resting atop it. Then to our right , kind of behind us , well those hills looked like the sun decided to grace parts of it with its presence- so pretty. Then we climbed some field that stood between those magical sights and then eventually, eventually got to our shelter, So pooped, But yeah, Cold/Cole Mountain= amazing view.