[at-l] 2/29/04 Low Gap Shelter

[spurhiker at pocketmail.com (spurhiker@pocketmail.com)]

The night felt not as cold as the previous night at Woods Hole, though I think the temperature probably went below freezing. This morning, hoarfrost has pushed up the leaves all around our campsite.

I get up around 7 AM while Takoma snores on. Eventually he rouses and immediately takes down his tarp and starts packing up. He says he slept okay, but still doesn't feel well. We eat breakfast quickly and leave together around 8:30.

His energy is lower today than yesterday. There's only moderate climbing, but he has to keep it in low gear the whole time unless we're descending.

Blue Mtn Shelter is only about 11 miles away, but he says he thinks Low Gap Shelter is as far as he wants to go today. That's about 4 miles from today's start.

We take it easy over rolling terrain, then make a slow ascent up Poor Mtn, stopping to rest at pretty much every convenient trailside log. My hiking buddy just doesn't have much energy flowing today.

We make our way over a couple of small knobs, then work our way up Sheep Rock Top. The trail relo here takes us first around the west side of the ridge, then switches to the east side before descending to the shelter in Low Gap.

We park at the shelter's picnic table
for lunch. Takoma fires up his Esbit stove to heat soup, while I make a cheese sandwich. I get up to get something out of my pack, and when I sit back down, the picnic table goes topsy-turvy, the far side flipping up in the air. We both spring up to keep it from turning over completely, but my drink spills, and the water from his cookpot extinguishes his fuel tabs. I feel awful, especially since he'd had a hard time getting it lit in the wind to begin with.

We realize how precariously balanced this aluminum-framed picnic table is. Two people need to sit on opposite sides to avoid this kind of mishap. While Takoma adds dry fuel and relights his stove, I get some large rocks from the creek and chock them under the bench on our side to prevent a repeat episode for the next unsuspecting pair of hikers.

After lunch, Takoma stretches out his sleeping pad and sacks out. Looks like we'll indeed be spending the night here. Takoma prefers sleeping in shelters instead of camping on the ground.

I've been trying to get him to borrow the old lightweight Nomad tent that Ready and I have stored in our attic, but until now he's declined. Today he said he thinks he might take me up on it. He saw last night that it's a lot easier to pitch than his tarp, and it keeps the wind off better as well. And come bug season, it's a great place to escape to when the mosquitoes get bad.

While he sleeps, I use my knifeblade to take apart my digital camera. The small plastic window in front of the viewfinder has come unglued and dropped partway down inside the camera. I get the camera apart and use a sliver of ducttape to stick the part back into place, then it's a tedious hour-long process to get the housing reassembled correctly. Amazingly, it all works fine afterwards.

With Takoma still napping, I wander around exploring the ridge behind us. Two small streams converge in front of the shelter, and I decide to track one of them back to its source. A hundred yards uphill I find where the water first emerges from the ground.

What I'm not expecting to see here is a 2-foot-long copperhead snake sunning himself at the edge of the spring, his tail still inside the hole in which he resides. He's so still I wonder if he's alive, and when I toss a small stick next to him, he doesn't move at all.

I pick up a 10-foot-long stick and lift him up slightly. He slips off and lands upside down, then slowly turns over and tells me to please let him be, so I oblige.

I bushwhack up to the trail north of the shelter and walk a ways further, enjoying the peace and quiet of a mild, sunny day in the woods with no particular destination in mind.

Later back in the shelter, Takoma has finally awakened and sounds like he's feeling better. While we're cooking supper, two fellows show up, tired from a long 14-mile day. Doug and his father-in-law Philip have been hiking from Springer since Thursday, and are finishing tomorrow at Unicoi Gap.

As everyone settles into the shelter after supper, Takoma picks up his guitar and gives us all a moonlight concert of his great trail songs. The guys realize they've lucked into a special occasion. I sew a repair on my waistpack while Takoma entertains. 
By 8 PM, the concert is over and the shelter grows quiet, except for the rhythmic sound of 4 guys snoring.

--Spur 
http://www.artofthetrail.com


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