Bud and Vicki Hogan's 1996 Appalachian Trail Journey
June 28
Hampton to Nick Grindstaff Monument (GRAVE).........................................17 miles
We meant to do only 8 miles of hiking today, ended up doing 17. The difficulty of finding water again dictated our movements. The plan was to stay at Vandeventer Shelter, got there by lunch time, so we moved on to Iron Mt. Shelter. Little did we know that there was no water. The creek was dry. So we sucked it up and started out, knowing we would not reach the next shelter by dark, but at least we'd reach a road. We could, if thirst drove us to it, hitch a ride into a town.
We had been down to 1 3/4 quarts of water. That could get us through supper tonight and breakfast in the morning with just a little to spare for some hiking. When faced with a shortage of water, you realize the only necessity to life is H2O. We knew we'd survive, but not knowing where the next water supply would be certainly made things interesting and really motivated us to hike a little faster.
We passed the Nick Grindstaff Monument. Although it was getting quite late, the sun was setting, we spared a minute to look at the monument. I could tell right away that this was more than a monument, this was a grave. Vicki paused to think, "I wonder where Ol' Nick got his water?" Not 100 yards past the site we came across a tree with a little metal, diamond shaped, sign with a red flag hanging from it that said "WATER." What a relief. We found what we needed. Not a great source of water, probably the worst of the entire trip, but it was water. Now if we could find a place to camp.
I went down to fill up our bottles and sent Vicki back up the trail to the monument. It was getting dark and I wanted to see if there was enough room at the monument to pitch a tent. We both got back to the place on the trail where we had left our packs. I had full water bottles and Vicki said it looked like someone else had camped up at the monument quite recently. I said "good enough for me" and away we went to spend the night with Ol' Nick.
There wasn't much room there, but there was enough. We set up our tent as the moon started to rise. It would be almost full tonight. And we would have a great view of Ol' Nicks grave all night long. The monument read, NICK GRINDSTAFF LIVED ALONE, SUFFERED ALONE, DIED ALONE. But he would not sleep alone, not tonight. We would not sleep really well tonight. This was just a little eerie, out in the middle of nowhere, alone, a full moon, and Nick.
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