Day 39 - Wednesday, July 21

Linda

Couldn't get moving very well this morning, so was almost 7:30 when we got going. The early morning was little cooler, but it didn't stay that way for long. Took a break at the top of Lookout Peak after an hour. The people who own the land here have graciously placed a 20 gallon jug of water for hikers at the top, which was greatly appreciated, since the trail is very dry. The trail wound up and down a lot as we headed toward Stoney Brook Lean-to. We passed one area where there was a crew bulldozing a logging road. What a mess! We had to wait for the bulldozer to go by. Took a picture or two to show "Progress" on the AT.

Got to the shelter at 11:30 and we were going to take a couple hour break from the heat. The shelter was nice and the water was good and clear. A Northbounder name Dick came in at 1:30 as we were beginning to get ready to leave and told us that a thundershower was on the way to cool things off. Sure enough, after about 10 minutes, the skies opened up and the rain poured down, the thunder boomed and the lightening cracked. Needless to say, we didn't go anywhere. The storm continued for most of the afternoon. Around 3:30 Mike came in dripping wet. We deliberated about whether we wanted to brave the rain or listen to Mike complain all night about his heavy gourmet food. He seems to have a one track mind about his food. If it's such a burden, why does he keep carrying it? I'm just so sick of hearing about it on a daily basis.

I guess we opted for the complaining, however, because neither of us moved. We were planning on going on to Mountain Meadows Lodge, and either stay there, or call the Vermont Winchells, (some shirttail relatives of Ronald's) to see if they wanted to entertain us for the evening. I have never met these people, and Ronald doesn't know them well, either, but we think they have been alerted that we are hiking through the area. I don't have any idea what will happen now as far as those arrangements go. Anyway, the rainstorm finally wound down around 5:00, but by then inertia had really set in, and we didn't budge. We fixed dinner and spent the evening exchanging trail stories with Dick, the Northbounder. We noticed many little animals in the area - saw a weasel and a shrew, as well as the usual squirrels and chipmunks. Wanted to get to bed early to be as fresh as possible for tomorrow. We'll probably have some catching up to do after our 8.5 mile day today.

Ron

This morning the humidity was every bit as bad as yesterday. The eight and a half miles to Stony Brook Lean-to were hot and miserable. There were no real views as all we did was climb up and down ridges. The view from the lookout on Lookout Mountain. was obscured by a thick haze.

On our way down the mountain we scared up our first deer - a white tail, who apparently felt it too hot to run far. The deer ran about twenty five yards, stopped and waited until we proceeded. A bit further down the trail, we ran into a bulldozer widening a road. They already had knocked most of the blazed trees down. We felt it fitting to take a picture of progress on the AT.

We took our midday our lunch break at 11:30. We were still resting at 1:30 when a north bound hiker came in from Mt. Meadows. We chatted for a few minutes as we got ready to go. I knew a front was moving in because of the heavy thunder activity. I hoped we would avoid the storm. About 15 minutes later the sky broke loose with torrents of rain, thunder and lightening.

Not wanting to get caught on a ridge in that lighting, we decided to wait it out at the shelter. All afternoon it rained and didn't clear until around 5:30. By then it was too late to reach Mountain Meadows. We decided to call it a day. At least we had someone interesting to talk too.

(17.5 Miles - 458.5 Total)