#192 Peru Peak Shelter to Minerva Hinchey Shelter - Day 117: MM1664.0 - MM1683.6
I point my headlamp in the direction of the scratching, and there, with its paws on the top step and its head inside the shelter, stands one of the largest.............
May 13, 2023
This morning’s hike is flat, but I better not get too comfortable with it, there’s plenty of elevation changes coming up. But for the moment I want to embrace the warm sunshine and cool breeze as I stroll along Griffith Lake through this wilderness paradise.
About halfway down my first descent, I take a short break at Lost Pawn Shelter, then bypass Old Job Shelter, cross Big Black Branch Bridge over Big Branch River, then bypass Big Branch Shelter and Little Rock Shelter - what’s with all these shelters in close proximity to one another? I will see two more before day’s end.
Walking along Little Rock Pond, I pass a family of four. The mom is passing out large bright red apples to the dad, the little boy and little girl. It looks like a Norman Rockwell scene, complete with the family dog in the background splashing around in the deep blue lake.
The trail continues skirting the lake to its end, then advances on. I pause to admire deep blue sky and water in contrast to the green trees. The crisp pine scented air fills my lungs. I have no choice but to sit and take it all in.
Siting on rock with feet in the water and my boots drying on the shore, I take a bite from my own bright red apple, left from yesterday’s trip into town.
The air warms as I climb up and over an unnamed mountain. On the other side lies a field of cairns. I stop to add a small rock to one of them.
Passing over that mountain and the White Cliffs area, I pull my phone to make a verbal note and notice my friend Kaylee - you know her as Hurley - sent a message:
Kaylee - How do you think being out there for this long has affected you? Do you think you’ll be okay going back?
I’m glad she asked, apparently, I had a few pent-up rants to share. So, I walk across the mountain preaching into my phone about everything that comes to mind.
Me - I'm not sure what I'm going to do when I get back. I’d like to do odd jobs for people for a while. If I have to return to regular work, I will do so for the sake of our finances but will try to be alone as much as possible, then come home each day and write my stories.
There are several major changes I want to make in life, and I'll tell you about those later on, as I am currently walking over some dangerous cliffs with poles in one hand and phone in the other and voice texting. (my readers will read them at the end of this book and see them come to pass in book four)
I’ll reach Hanover NH in a few days where this year’s hike ends and will have a long Gap before coming back. It will be best to come pick it back up in late August of 2024 to finish the trail.
My reason for being here is different from most other hikers, though some are out here healing. Also, I came out here at a bad time, financially. Honestly, I shouldn't even be out here, but I’ll take two months and do what needs to be done. To save money I am forgoing simple pleasures like showers and hostels, along with other luxuries because they are too expensive.
People back home keep telling me to take a shower. Why bother? A couple of mountains later you begin stinking again anyway, so why waste precious time and money. I don't have to get clean to hike.
Remember earlier in the trip when you asked if I’d found the beast of Sprawl? I did find it. It began breaking through one day when it was raining, and I had put on gloves and a poncho, then pulled them off a mile into the hike because I feel like a wimp walking down the trail looking like a garbage bag- and decided right then that I’d face the elements stripped down, allowing Raw Sprawl to emerge. That was over two weeks ago, I think, as I’m losing track of time out here.
Raw Sprawl first emerged last year on the trail, and I loved him. I was happy when he returned this year. I need him to push me forward.
My goal is to complete this trail and get it behind me. This was never anything I wanted to do in its entirety. When I used to talk about it back in the good old days, I always talked about it in terms of my son and I doing it together, but as you know, it never happened……and never will.
You don’t realize how much the daily grind of societal living affects your mind, until you’re free of it for a while. There is something about waking up with the sun, walking for ten hours through the wilderness, then laying back down with the sun that is purifying.
It takes three or four weeks to acclimate to this life. I walk around twenty miles most days. A bit shorter on days I have to drop into a town for supplies, depending on how long it takes to do that.
I only eat for the sake of energy, unlike at home, where I eat in excess from abundance, sometimes out of boredom. I’ve been drinking straight from springs and streams; I stopped filtering a while ago.
Birds are always singing by day. Other creatures chime in by night. There’s usually a cool breeze, beautiful scenery, and plenty of solitude.
I've had far more sunny days than rainy days. I’ve learned to embrace the rainy days, invigorated by them. Not one mile has been forfeited by rain, nor any day shortened. At worse, soggy ground and slick boulder scrambles slow me down a little.
I’ve come here to hike a trail, not to hide from its elements. I came to melt into the wilderness, to tend to the scars in my heart, to reset my mind, to realign my path beyond the trail.
Sorry to keep rambling. How are you doing?
I have Minerva Hinchey Shelter all to myself so far. I find a suitable spot to pitch my tent in case anyone else comes into the shelter and I decide to sleep outside of it. I need a good night sleep. My Henderson friend snored all night last night- so loud the water rushing past the shelter didn’t drown it out.
Twilight falls, orange lingers on the horizon, the rest of the sky glows blue. Geese fly overhead, crickets begin their chorus, the air is cooling fast.
I finish dinner and lay my bedding on the floor inside the shelter. A night prowler creeps around the shelter. I go out a couple of times with my headlamp to see what it is. I don’t see anything, but it sounds big enough to lead me to thinking it’s just a bear messing around looking for food.
I lay back down and go into a deep sleep.
Late in the night it finally reveals itself. The sound of claws scratching the wood of the steps into the shelter wakes me.
I point my headlamp in the direction of the scratching, and there, with its paws on the top step and its head inside the shelter, stands one of the largest rodents in the world, a large porcupine, frozen in place due to the light shining into its eyes, which reflect red, with its quills relaxed.
I climb out of my sleeping bag, a few feet from my visitor, and grab my hiking poles, never removing the light from its face. I use the pole to push it off the side of the steps.
There’s an old dirt road that runs in front of the shelter, which causes more people to come up here, usually the cause for more bear and rodent activity.
Fortunately, someone had cut wood into firepit-sized slivers and stacked them inside the shelter. I use several of them, along with two lawn rakes, to make a Stonehenge style wall across the top step.
If the night prowler comes back up the steps, the wall will fall and alert me. I take that cheap headlamp I’d bought over a month ago when I couldn’t get my good one to shine and point it at my wooden booby-trap overnight.
I climb back into my sleeping bag and sleep soundly on the safe side of Woodhenge, wondering if this is the first “quill pig” alarm constructed on the trail.
