5/22/01
The first person out of the shelter this morning was me again, breaking spider webs and picking up water on the vegetation all over my body from the rain. It was a good night in the shelter last night with no mice for a change. It was a long climb from Jennings Creek at 951' to Floyd Mountain at 3,560'. Lunch was on my mind as I reached Cornelius Creek shelter and met Deuce +1/2 after reading her register entries for so many days. She moved on as I sat down for lunch. I was able to enjoy a cold soda while eating, thanks to a man who frequents the shelter. First, he gave me the soda. Then he tried to recruit me to become a Jehovah's Witness. We had an interesting conversation after that for a few moments, but soon I was anxious to move on down the trail. As I was leaving, Diablo was coming up, so I almost did a U-turn just to watch the exchange that I knew was certainly about to occur. The afternoon skies were darkening rapidly and by 2 p.m. there was thunder rumbling in the distance. I was in the process of climbing Apple Orchard Mountain, a 4,225' peak with an exposed summit so I was indecisive about whether or not to continue to the top. I decided to go for it in hopes that I wouldn't get caught in a lightning storm just as I was reaching the exposed summit. It worked. The wind was howling and the clouds were screaming by so I wasted no time pushing over the summit in search of the shelter. I arrived just in time, yet again, as the storm kicked in.
The great news of the day was a note in the shelter about trail magic just a few hundred yards away that was scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Then I read the trail register in the shelter. Bigfoot ! ! ! It was Bigfoot from my home town who thru-hiked in 97. He and wife Christine are on a two year North American continent adventure. They found me via E-mail contact with Paula. There were 12 hungry hikers packed in the shelter weathering the severe storm while hoping it would quit in time to walk up to Bigfoot's RV for trail magic dinner. Fortunately for us, the storm did subside and we were able to enjoy great trail magic and wonderful hospitality from Bigfoot and Christine. They prepared bacon cheeseburgers on the grill complemented by potato salad, coleslaw, potato chips, cold beer, sodas, juice, and then had ice cream and nuts and hot fudge to make sundaes for dessert. Plus chocolate chip cookies! It was a thru-hikers dream meal for trail magic. The twelve of us stayed and ate to our hearts content, then we slowly worked our way back to the shelter for the night. It was great seeing Bigfoot again (hadn't seen him since he did a presentation for our scout troop...the one that really fired me up to do a thru-hike). What a perfect end to an otherwise tough day with rough weather. For the record, the attendees of the fabulous trail magic evening were: Rabbit, Diablo, Boot Stew and Day Dreamer, Tony, JB, Manchie, BamBam and Freebird, Deuce + 1/2 and Ed. Today's stats; low 50 degrees, high 60. Cloudy, then heavy storms, then cold. Today's mileage; 17.2 Cumulative mileage; 751.4.
One more thing I forgot to mention. We were sheltering at Thunder Hill shelter on Thunder Ridge. I should have known beforehand why the shelter has that name!
