Not much. I am settling in to a work rhythm, but that may be disrupted by the Army. I am currently at Aberdeen Proving Grounds, but may be moving down to DC in a few weeks, once the Army lets me know.
I have gotten back into a couple of things that I was into before the Iraqi adventure: Running and hiking. I talked a little bit about running the Army Ten Miler in my last post, cool race, I haven't planned on my next one, though.
I have done two more section hikes on the Appalachian Trail, bringing my section total to just under 625 miles, which sounds good, but there are 2178 miles on the trail. My first section hike was from Elk's Grove, VA (just south of MT Rodgers) to Damascus, VA, about 24 miles or so. The section was mostly downhill, but had some serious ups as well. (Pictures posted on the right, if the link works) I was hiking with Charles and Deaton W., one of the scoutmasters I worked with in NC and his son. We met in Damascus Friday night, had some pizza for supper and then headed up to Elks Garden to camp overnight. When we got there, a local scout troop was camping there (all very young scouts, maybe 12 years old), we teased Deaton that he was that small at one time. Now he is a strapping 6'4 or 5", once he fills out he could be trouble on the trail. It was his idea to go hiking, which was pretty cool to hear coming from a 16 year old. Saturday was great weather, shorts and short sleeve shirt all around, like all hikes on the AT it started off going up hill until we hit the top of White Top Mountain and Buzzards Rock. We ran into the Scout troop up there, once again, Deaton denied ever being that small. We had some pretty good downs after that, and the day finished with a solid 4 miles of ups, which made it kind of unpleasant, but a fine welcome back to the AT.
Once we got to Saunders Mountain Shelter we ran into some thru and long-term section hikers, Spoonful (hiking from Harpers Ferry to Springer), Calamity (finishing off her through hike from Maine to Springer). They were hiking together in a sort, they would end up at the same place every night, she would start about an hour earlier than him and finish off a couple of hours after him. The third hiker, Mark, was getting off the trail in Damascus. Calamity was 64 years old, retired from up in NY and just decided to hike. Spoonful was much younger, probably 30 ish, and was taking a life-break - - - sometimes when life starts to move to fast for you, and you aren't really that happy with what you are doing you take a life-break and escape. He chose to escape on the AT. We had supper with the group, talked a bit about the trail then everyone went their own way to go to bed. I was hanging in my hammock, snug as a bug in a rug. Charles and Deaton were tenting it and the other three folks shared the shelter.
Family note: Faye, not sure if you remember this or not, but the other half of the "Best Ever Gift from Faye" was a beeswax chapstick along with the Northface gloves, I found that in the bottom of one of my backpack pockets and used it happily.
The second day of the hike was down into Damascus, mostly downhill, depending on how fast you go, it is normally worse going downhill on your body. Going up a hill makes you feel bad for a moment, but you get over it once you get to the top of the hill, downhill makes your thighs hurt all day long. I didn't really feel it until the drive home the next day, but I did feel it. If anyone ever goes to Damascus, there is a cool little coffee shop there, me and Charles partook of some coffee there. All in all a good hike and a fierce welcome back from the AT. Charles and I plotted to get our third amigo and his son (Bill and John O.) out in JAN 2010, I think we will be successful.
My second hike was not as difficult, I ran into a guy in my running club that expressed an interest in hiking and camping, so we planned a shorter hike here in MD. I wanted to keep it short just in case he wasn't really into the trail, it wouldn't be too far to have to listen to him complain about the trail. There is about 40 miles of the AT in MD, we decided to hike about half of it. We started off at the MD Washington Monument (the first monument to George Washington, and one that he actually visited) and hiked south towards Harper's Ferry, WVA. The hike was through some of the area that the Second Battle of Antietam took place (a rare, pre-Grant Union victory), so there were Civil War markers to look at throughout the hike. I will post some pictures in the normal picture posting area.
The terrain up here was pretty easy, we started off with a 4 mile stint up from the monument to Rocky Run Shelter. I have to say, that was the nicest shelter I have seen on the trail so far, but we camped behind it. We joined an unknown hiker that was taking an extended life-break: He did a north to south thru hike (Springer MTN, GA to Katadhin MTN, Maine) and then decided to turn around and do it the other way, kind of a Forrest Gump sort of thing: Just kept hiking and then I stopped. The second day was a very fast 13 or so miles, the terrain is very mild here in MD, which was appreciated after the previous week. We are not sure what time we started, but we finished off about 1100. I was supposed to bring the watch, but left it in the apartment, so we just winged it SAT morning.
I think the next hike will be in JAN with Charles, Bill, Deaton and John; after that, I will knock out the other section in MD. Once I am done with MD, I will probably work to finish off VA over the spring and summer and knock out that last section in NC (Franklin, NC to Fontana Dam).
