The Frog Has Leapt - July 19

Best Wife and Pappy 12's frog has leapt from VA to NY. After driving to NY on July 17 and hiking 4 miles late that afternoon, we hiked 16.5 the next day and hiked into CT the day after that. It felt good to hike out of Yankee territory, but not so good to get closer to Red Sox turf. Lose lose.

The first morning in NY I was with another hiker at a picnic table eating my oatmeal with raisins and cashews. I asked his name. Poppins. I'm thinking I've met this dude, but then on the AT all 25 year olds with beards look the same to me. He asked my name. Pappy 12. He says he thinks he remembers me. He asked if I'm hiking with somebody. Sure, her name is Best Wife. Poppins started his hike in GA one week after we started down there. Poppins is hiking 20 or 22 mile days and has not taken a zero (day off). That means he passed us our second or third week in, and then after our leapfrog is passing us again. Looking forward to the next young hot shot speedy hiker who will pass us for the second time.

That night we were eating dinner with another young hiker named Speedy. He was eating cold food because he had left his stove at his camp that morning. After texting his buddies who were at the same camp he still couldn't find any good news about his stove. He tried calling a local ridge runner without any luck. He tried Uber to go back and fetch it but the would cost more than the stove is worth. The next morning Speedy had no plan to retrieve his stove.

One mile into his hike that day he ran into a southbounder, Wheels, who was hiking that day to the very shelter where the stove was. Wheels hikes south every day to one of his cars parked at a road crossing, then drives north a ways to hike south again to his other parked car waiting for him at another road crossing. Wheels said he would gladly find the stove and deliver it to Poppins that evening. What are the chances? Lesson learned: often a situation that seems dire works itself out in a way least expected.

Although you have seen lots of pictures of trees in these emails, you have not seen one as big as the Dover Oak below. The grand daddy of them all. The other tree pictured below of an open mouthed crazy man reminds me of somebody. Can't think of who it is. Somebody tell me who this tree looks like.

Sometimes we will only see two or three other tents at a camp. Below is a picture of a camp one night with 16 other tents. The more the merrier.