Thomas Knob Shelter
In to Thomas Knob for breakfast. A few straggler hikers said that indeed the shelter was packed last night. Everyone was cold with the wind and the mist -- penetrating. Seemed a dark and unwelcoming shelter; our gap had winds in the trees but we were easily 700 feet lower in elevation and mostly out of the weather down low. Read the register entries for a while, made my own. Outside, ever so slowly, the clouds were lifting. Changed into shorts, left the upper weather gear on, flipped pack and headed back out.
Songs running through my head. On some of the long ridge walks, or when I've been alone for some hours, I turn on my little walkman radio and roam around the dial, earbuds in place. Along with my trail journal, I keep a small spiral notebook for jotting things down. Food or supplies I might need in the next town, observations on trail or landscape, stuff not noted in the Companion, maybe a small note tucked into an obvious rock crevass for hikers behind to find. Might also jot down snippets of song lyrics that play, or rebound from some cobweb corner of my mind, a place I haven't had the time or focus or quiet enough for the stream of consciousness to sift back over the memories. And they surface. Harboring some new facet of meaning with the terrain or the time. Or not.
Down at the New Amsterdam
Down with a yellow haired girl
... we all want something beautiful
... all of the beautiful colors are so meaningful
god I wish I was beautiful
-counting crowes