Tuesday, October 27 Day Two.

I got started early in the morning from the hotel room, after checking the weather report that said there was going to be light showers in the morning and made my way over to the Paulding Health Center which is were the Paulding Trailhead is located, from there I pushed on to Dallas/ Tara Drummond trailhead and then to Rambo nursery. It was here at Rambo nursery that I squirreled away some of the rations I brought, I mistakenly packed twice as much as I would have needed. I then proceeded westward towards Coots Lake. I was about a half an hour behind my schedule at this point.

About MM 24 is where it got light enough to see beyond the immediate trail and I was doing fairly well, and was getting in some beautiful scenery. At MM26 it started to rain lightly and there was a park bench there so I used it to help make a shelter while I waited the rain out. It was only about thirty minutes before the rain stopped so I broke down the shelter and headed west. I may have made a hundred yards when it started to rain again. And it rained hard. I could see up ahead the bridge for the Willow Spring Rd that crossed the trail and I made my way for it. I got under it and put my tarp up again and then it really started in. So I sat under the bridge, like a little troll, on my stool and waited the rain out.

And waited, and waited, and waited......

One and a half hours I was waiting. This wasn't looking good. The ravine that this bridge crossed and the trail was on was deep and the sides of it was steep and with the rain I decided not to try and climb out, even so, it still would have been about the same distance. But this was also one of those old one lane wooden bridge that had a small expansion crack between each board, like on a deck. So every time someone drove across the bridge I would get more water shaken down on me, or on my tarp.

But after that long of a wait on the rain to let up, I realize that the rain was going to be here for the day. And I had to make a decision:

1.) Do I wait it out and the possibility of spending a cold wet night on the trail, that I wasn't equip for?

2.) Try and walk it out and spend the night at the Clarendon's.

I opted for #2.

So, I made a decision of what to lighten my load with and left the tarp, bedroll, mat and the stool. I rolled the mat and the bedroll up in the tarp and put them behind a tree beside the trail and then I put my stool on behind one of the beams that supported the bridge. Shouldered by pack and away I went.

I was wearing a slicker jacket and my magnum boots were water tight but I was wearing a pair of cargo pants and they got soak. And my underwear got soaked, and my socks got soak.

But the walk from the Willow Spring Rd was beautiful. Even in the rain. This was the first time I had walked this section and it was gorgeous. I left my camera in a dry spot and didn't want to bring it out so no pictures of this part. But still this was some breathtaking country. After I had gone nearly over three miles I came to the Brushy Mountain Tunnel. This was a tunnel that went through a ridge in the mountain and if I had been able to make this part before the rain, well. I might have waited the rain out. But on the other side I got a call from Mark and he informed me in the form of a question that he was coming to pick me up. I, by this time, had a diaper rash and could feel some good size heal blisthers and the rain hitting on the hood of the slicker was starting to drive me nuts. Plus, Mark is a more experience hiker then myself , and I would defer to his judgment, so I told him I'd meet him at Coot's lake, with was the nearest trailhead. And told him that it would take me about 1 1/2 hours to make it there. I figure that I'd rather wait on him then have him wait on me. Plus there was a convenient store that I could use to wait and get some much needed hot coffee.

Well, I was right, it did take me about an hour and a half to walk the three miles and mark was waiting on me. I also notice by this time that the front of my pants had gotten foamy from water. I expected to be chaff later on.

When we got to the Clarendon's house on Paris MT. I basically got my old bathrobe that I kept there, went down into the basement and took a hot shower, checked out my blisters and put some hand lotion on my rash and then laid down and slept. I didn't awake until about 10 PM.

I went up stairs and Joyce was still up and I ate some dinner that they held over for me and we talked for a while then I went back to bed and slept the rest of the night.