AT Summer '16: Lost Mountain Shelter to Saunders Shelter (Day 5)

Appalachian Trail, 6.4 miles

Today was our easier day: around six and a half miles. A couple miles into our hike we met up with the Virginia Creeper Bike trail, which felt very flat and manicured, after five days in the wild.

Also today we decided on a trail name for Jay: "Old Yeller." Because about every twenty steps or so, he lets out some kind of hoot or shriek or yell of exhaustion.

Despite the shorter-mileage day today, we are feeling fairly tired, even Tim.

At Wise Shelter tonight, Matt and Joe made a nice fire, which was great because we had lots of time to enjoy it, since we finished up hiking at around mid-afternoon.

Some previous hikers took artistic license with a stump near the campfire and turned it into a pig sculpture.

Having all this free time at the end of the day sometimes proves to be not such a good thing though. Matt and Joe started monkeying around with a huge vine that looked great for swinging on, but as luck would have it, it gave way just as Matt was swinging and he flew into the brush. No major injuries except for a scraped-up leg, but it did give us old folks plenty to grouse about, considering it would be nearly impossible to evacuate an injured hiker out of this place at 8pm, with no cell service and no nearby road access. Getting old and fretful can be such a bother.

Dinner tonight was quite the hodgepodge. We are all at the end of our food supplies, so we are eating up whatever is left. I had a package of Thai-spiced tuna, mixed in with freeze-dried Just Veggies, topped off with the leftover gravy from the beef stroganoff Joe re-hydrated for his dinner. He liked the stroganoff okay until he realized there were little bits of mushrooms in there; that was a deal breaker for him. Fortunately by that time he had already eaten 90% of the package.