17A!

Just crossed NY17A, which means I'm through with my 1362.7-mile warm-up hike!  Off to Bellvale Creamery to celebrate!

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Blue Mtn Summit B&B

We're in for an unplanned 0 to avoid some very wet dicey rock scrambling over knife's edge, so I thought I'd chime in with a few random thoughts.  First off, thanks to mom, dad, Steph, Dan, and Hunter Stone for making our Harpers Ferry end-of-hike-for-Bartless party awesome.  Thanks also to Gandalf's academy classmate and his parents, the Kakiels, for putting us up.  Finally, thanks to Mr. Blackburn (Gandalf's dad) for meals and a motel stay.
Now for some random facts:
Best trail town - Waynesboro, VA
Most underrated hostel - Grateful Greenpeace's Terrapin Station in Front Royal, VA
Most overrated hostel - Wood's Hole, S of Pearisburg VA (great food, but laundry was exhorbitant and bunkhouse was bad)
Best on-trail meal - Mountain House Beef Stew (compliments of Cowboy)
Best town meal - 4-course vegetarian feast at Elmer's in Hot Springs NC (cured 3+ days of Shoney's induced diarrhea; Woods' Hole dandelion salad & venison burgers also excellent, as was dinner at Chickpeas in Waynesboro)
Prettiest trail section - Roan Highlands, TN (Grayson Highlands a very close 2nd)
Shittiest section - Wayah Bald, NC (miles of postholing through 2-3' snow with blowing fog and hypothermia-rain, uphill; Campchair: "I ran for a little while, then I just sat down and almost started to cry")
Best new trail food - bakery bread w/ pepperjack cheese and olive oil (thai sesame noodles Knorr side + sardines also much better than it sounds)
Best resupply store - Wegman's supermarket in Mechanicsville PA absolutely blew my mind, Big Lots in Hampton TN was also awesome
Best new piece of gear - steel bottle for boiling tea water on fire
Worst new gear - new Chaco sandals had severe sole delamination w/in 250 miles, will see how warranty service goes
Most pointless up/down - 3rd Ridge of 3 Ridges, N central VA
Douchiest day-hiker - 2 old dudes @ shelterjust S of Daleville
Coolest day-hiker - Herb, in the mid-Shenandoahs

That's all for now.  Gonna go see if they have any other VHS movies around this place . . .

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Ukulele

Hi all, so I found a ukulele in one of the shelters in the Shennies, ad I've decided to just tune it as a 4-string guitar since the actual uke tuning is too bizarre.  Anyway, I just thought I'd ask for good campfire/singable/easy songs that would sound tolerable on a moderately out of tune $10 ukulele.  Bonus points if you've got a link to the chords!

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Characters

It's a little late to recount the hike blow by blow from day 1, so I'll just say that March (all of it) was freezing, snowy (postholing anyone?), slushy, rainy, sleety, wintry mix-y, windy and foggy -- usually all at once.  In the Smokies it was so wet and cold that the trees (and everything else) had huge ice crystals growing horizontally in the direction of the wind.  April has been hot, dry, buggy and generally awesome.  We saw our last snow on the Humps in TN then 2 days later it was 90+ F on the ridge and Johnson City TN set a heat record.  So didi Damascus VA a few days later.  
Anyway, it's been a pretty sparse crew of thru-hikers that flipped ol' man winter the bird and slogged on through, so I actually know the names of most of the folks in front of and around me.  So here's a semicomplete list in no special order, and maybe I'll elaborate on some of them later:
Cowboy
Snow White
Subby
Snow Plow/Rooster
Appleseed
Branch
Rocker
40oz
Camp Chair
Vish
Cricket
Kit
Cake
Stilts
Li'l Buddha
Frisbee
Tattoo Joe
Eric D
Roadrunner
Crash Course
Silver
Ghost
Olaf/Hermann
Shakespeare

That's all for now, sure I'll have more later.

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Front Royal

Eventful week.  Just about done with VA, after a tiring 5 days thru the Shennies.  Spending tonight at Grateful Greenpeace's hostel, then 4 easy days to Harper' Ferry.  Finally caught up with one of the other thru-hiker groups, and they're gonna party up at Harpers too.  Stoked to switch to summer gear and save tons of weight, see the family, and live it up for Bartless' farewell bash.  Sad to lose Dan, one of our quartet of Lefties, who got bad knee tendinitis and went back home to Mass -- hopefully he'll join back up later.  Pics, feasting, and town-painting this weekend . . .

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Real Blogs

hi all
   as you can see, i dont get a lot of cpu time.  here are my friends' blogs, which actually get updated:
danthemanathike.wordpress.com
welliwouldwalk1000miles.blogspot.com
i'm still planning on some brief phone updates, but mostly just random thoughts.  another NOBO blog you might look at:
trailjournals.com/entry.cfm?trailname=10081
his trailname is Nickel, and we walked w him till NOC where he had to get off (bum knee), so now he's driving around the AT making a documentary.
time for a shower!

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MAS-Bioenergy

I just became a MAS-Bioenergy Fellow at Colorado State University!

Gatlinburg

One of several awesome shots I got from Rocky Top on my second day in the Smokies -- just high enough to get out of the cloud and see a distant peak (maybe Clingman's, not sure).

Finishing out a zero day in Gatlinburg, TN (via Newfound Gap, mile 204). Two longish days will get us to Davenport Gap and out of the Smokies, then two more will put us in Hot Springs. I only have a few minutes before the office here at the Grand Prix Motel closes down, so I'm afraid that's all for now. I've got a lot to say, and maybe if I feel ambitious I'll try to get some posted via phone in the next few days.

Thanks Justin and David and Mom and Dad!

Justin, David and I in Atlanta after dinner Sunday night.

So I'm back. It's been 2 years, minus 7 days, and I'm starting over.
If you're reading this, you probably know the routine: Springer Mtn, GA to Mt Katahdin, ME, via 2175 miles of rolling Appalachian ridgeline. You may also notice that this is the space formerly devoted to my ongoing translation of the Greek New Testament. That work isn't exactly defunct, more like postponed (to be done right, it requires long tracts of time and, more importantly, a great cumbersome volume called a lexicon, neither of which I'll have on the trail). Rather than reformatting this space (lexanspork.blogspot.com) for my forthcoming hiking posts, I decided to move my translation work to its own address (greekedout.blogspot.com).

Tomorrow is a long day of hiking, and it's getting awfully close, so I'll save the particulars of gear and planning for another day (like when they've begun to cause problems!).

Many thanks to my family (mom and dad and sister, Stephanie) for putting up with my disruptive planning and logistical needs (like rides to the airport amidst Pittsburgh's snowiest month on record). Also thanks to Justin Simmons, for hosting me for a second time at his Atlanta, GA, digs, and shuttling me to Springer while he could (should?) be writing his perfunctory World Religions paper. Last but not least, thanks to David Hayes (GAME '06) for my first bout of 2010 trail magic (equal share in a fully-loaded monster of a pizza--plus side salad--at tonight's last meal).

Here's to 2200 miles of similarly good folks and good fortunes!