[at-l] one more time

[Felix J]

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. (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 frigid 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/