Saunders Shelter, May 16
M=5.6; C=456
The evening I hiked out of D-town, I managed 5.6 miles to Feathercamp Branch. Oh man, did they route the A.T. over some PUDs here. At the dark edge of dusk, I rolled into an unlikely camping area - just a small level patch off Trail in the woods - meeting a hiker already set up for the storm brewing overhead. Woodrat had set up his tent and was rigging his fly as the winds picked up. Now I had a chance to try out my new larger tarp as a rainfly.
I found a few trees about the right distance apart for the tarp, on a small rise where I thought a gullywasher wouldn't overflow coming down the hillside. Pulled out my other tarp, pad and liner to build my burrito. Got my water bottle out and burrowed into my burrito just as the deluge came down. Boy, did it rain. But I was dry, my gear was dry and it looked like I'd stay that way even with the blowing winds.
What I didn't count on was the carpenter ants. They were most confused by this big mass on their mound, and they crawl everywhere. Even worse, they don't seem to go to sleep.
There's no time that's the right time to find another camping spot when it's (a) dark, (b) a thunderstorm is raging atop of you, (c) you are in a primative camp, not a nice laid-out formal campground, (d) you are dressed only in your camp shorts with your rain gear buried in the top pouch of your pack that has been carefully nested within its pack cover to keep dry, (e) you are being motivated by dozens of befuddled ants still crawling all over you, with dozens more in your sleeping gear.
I did relocate to another pair of trees with my tarp, burrito bedding and pack, but it was hours before the last ant left. Shortly before sunrise. At least the storm had moved off.
The next morning, it was a brief breakfast, broke camp, and headed up the trail where Woodrat and I were up and down more PUDs and road crossings. We came across this shelter, where I knew I was going to nap for an hour. Woodrat hiked on. The nap was brief -- other hikers came and went too frequently. After a few groggy hours, with a packflip I was off. This beautiful shelter could have been home the night before - if I had left D-town an hour earlier. The Trail will present lessons...