Doctor Who? (the question mark is part of his trail name) and I took a while this morning convincing ourselves that it wasn't raining hard enough to justify crawling back into our sleeping bags. Nature and the promise of reaching Damascus got me moving first.
As I was finishing pack-up, I noticed that he was sitting and staring at the rain with a tired expression I have seen a few times on the Trail. “It won't rain all the way to Springer,” I offered.
“Yeah. But I'm done. Maybe next year.”
We offered best wishes, and I headed out into the drizzle.
This was a good test of my hunter orange rain kilt, and it passed with flying colors! It kept my lower body dry, was much more comfortable than rain pants. None of the half-dozen SOBOs who passed made disparaging comments, other than one woman who asked if hunting season was open in Tennessee?
A dayhiker joined in one of my SOBO conversations, unfortunately a chatty sort who wanted to talk about his prostate surgery. I helped the poor SOBO escape, but would up with “Jolly Roger” trailing me and chattering all the way to the next shelter.
Three more SOBO acolytes were taking a break there, all chattering about the members of their clan that were either ahead of or behind them on the trail. So, a full shelter … not. Everyone moved on but me. Why would anyone be fixing dinner at 4:30? Because it's cold, I'm wet, I'm tired, the next shelter is eight miles away, and I want to put on my warm dry stuff and curl up in my sleeping bag. Alone is fine, take care, happy trails, don't let the door slam on your way out ....
Except, a group of older guys out on their first multi-day AT hike rolled in. They plan to hammock out in the rain? Ok, have a good time …. And an ultralight hiker joined us and goes straight to set up on the shelter deck with me while the others go about learning how to set up camp in the woods when it is raining.
Thunder and hard rain tonight. Tomorrow, more rain? Possibly.
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