[at-l] one more time

[EHamilton]

Egads! I'm glad I'm not going in January! :-)
 
MacGyver



________________________________
From: Felix J <AThiker at smithville.net>
To: at-l <AT-L at backcountry.net>
Sent: Sunday, January 4, 2009 7:23:38 PM
Subject: [at-l] one more time

1/4/98

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. (The guy whose pack I tried to lighten a few days earlier)  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 together at a fridged Hawk Mt. Shelter. I couldn't find the 
spring. Again, it was 5º 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 (walkmen?) 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"
ALT '03 KT '03
http://Felixhikes.tripod.com/



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