Troll's 2010 AT Journal

02 September 2010, Zealand Falls Hut
The couple in the shelter started moving around at 05:30 this morning. I was pretty much awake at that time, just dozing in and out of sleep. I laid in bed until about 06:30 and got up and ate breakfast and started my daily routine. We only had two very minor mouse incidents last night when a mouse got into the lady's pack. Then this morning the guy told me he had felt a mouse run through his hair in the night. That is one of the reasons I do not sleep with my head to the walls, the mice like to run around the walls at night. When I explained that to him and told him that was why I slept facing away from the walls he said "good idea". I ran low on water when fixing dinner last night and the couple let me use some of their water. I thanked them and was very grateful because I did not want to walk downhill to the water source, I was too tired and it was pitch black out. I filtered water on the way out this morning.

When I got to Galehead Hut Hopper was waiting for me there. I busted my ass to get there because I knew she stayed there last night and I was trying to get there before she left. It was a 2.9 mile stretch that was terrible and I was so tired when I arrived there that I could have called it a day. As soon as she saw me she started giving me crap, saying things like, are you ready to go yet, what took so long. I could have dealt with it but she kept repeating it over and over again. She was just trying to show oof in front of the other two hikers that were that, T-Rex and Mandurkin. It got on my nerves. I told her to screw off, and go ahead without me. She asked if I was serious and I told her yes. She went outside and put her pack on and left. I sat there eating a snack and filling myself with gatorade while I talked to T-Rex and Mandurkin. T-Rex told me about his fall this morning coming down off Garfield. He said he blacked out while coming down the steep decent and he must have instinctively put his left arm out because when he woke up his arm was banged up and hurt. When he went to stand up after his fall he said he blacked out again. He said he at the time being and was fine and he was not going to let it end his hike.

I left the hut about 1/2 hour after Hopper left and went up and over South Twin Mountain. I did catch Hopper on Mt Guyot just as she was finishing her lunch. I asked her if she would wait 10 minutes while I ate something and she did. We hiked together for the rest of the day. I started dragging way behind her later on in the day and had to stop to eat something to refuel myself.

Hopper was walking in front of me this afternoon and at one point the trail started a decent where she fell face first into the rocks. I was about 50 yards behind and saw this happen. I yelled at her and she was only moaning. I ran up to her and she was conscious and moving and started talking to me. She was just regaining her composure. She does have some nasty looking scratches on the left side of her face though. She is an accident prone person. She is always rolling her ankle and falling.

About two miles from our destination of Zealand Falls Hut my left knee started giving me some bad pain. It caused me to slow down drastically.

When we arrived at the hut we both got our bunks for the night. This is the only hut that I made reservations at. Hopper made reservations at four of the huts. I was not willing to spend $97 a night for every hut in the Whites. I had heard this was the best hut to stay at in the Whites because of the falls beside it. I decided to do one hut experience so I chose this one.

They rang a bell when dinner was ready. They started out with pumpkin vegetable soup and honey wheat bread followed by a salad. Dinner was stuff shells with tomato sauce. The pumpkin vegetable soup was very good, I had seconds. The stuffed shells were good too.

Chef, SK’Rabbit, DB, Giant, Lefty, Puma, Tamon, Forest, Patches, Pebbles, Shadow, and Motorboat all came by here tonight to try to do work for stay. Work for stay is when they let thru hikers sleep on the dining room floor in exchange for doing some chores around the place. The chores can be anything from sweeping floor, washing dishes, cleaning tables. They only let four thru hikers stay tonight so everyone moved on except Chef, Puma, Forest, and Tamon.

Tomorrow is a day that has me a little concerned. It is eight miles to route 302, then six more miles to the next hut, Mizpah Spring Hut. The total is 14.1 miles if I try to make it to the next hut. I did 10 miles today and started dragging towards the end of the day and my knee hurt. The other obstacle will be after crossing route 302 because there is no water for six miles after the road crossing. With a steep climb up Webster Cliffs I am sure I will be sucking down water. I do not want to run out of water in case there is a slight chance that I cannot make it to Mizpah Spring Hut. I am really concerned about doing 14 miles tomorrow. The plan is to leave right after we get done eating breakfast and trying to make it to route 302 by noon time. Hopper has to make it to the hut tomorrow because she has reservations. I don't have reservations so it does not matter to me. If I get to route 302 and don't feel comfortable about going another six miles then I won't.