[at-l] windin' down...

[athiker at smithville.net (Felix)]

1/4/99  This morning brought me the most excruciating pain of the 5
month journey. I had left my boots out over night. They were frozen.
They were frozen. It took 12 minutes to put them on. Then, there was the
trip to the privy (stainless-steel-seated privy). It was about 16
minutes of physical inactivity. My feet were frozen. It took over an
hour to get the circulation going enough to warm my feet again. They
hurt so bad that my stomach hurt. Somewhere in that first mile and a
half, I passed Tank. He was definitely struggling. He said that I was
right about a lot of the weight he was carrying. I told him to make it
to Neel's and have Jeff go through it. I hiked most of the day
leapfrogging with QP and WB. I liked them and liked having someone
around for a change. Especially someone who was excited about the same
thing that I was excited about. We spent the night, 5 years ago tonight,
together at a fridged Hawk Mt. Shelter. I couldn't find the spring.
Again, it was 5? or less. This time, my boots were in my bag.
 (Footnote: QP's pee bottle from Woodshole S. froze and he had to carry
a bottle of frozen urine all day. We laffed. Well, not QP)

Something I shant forget about that night at Hawk Mt. is this:
The Tennessee Volunteers were playing for the national
championship. QP and WB are from the Knoxville area. They both had
walkmans and were listening to the game. QP's radio wouldn't pick it up.
So, WB broke his headphones and gave one earpiece to QP. They snuggled
up together and cheered as I slept, dreaming of the next day...


-- 
Felix J. McGillicuddy
ME-->GA '98
"Your Move"
http://Felixhikes.tripod.com