Maupin Shelter
The title says it all. I was last up at the Dutch Haus. I was last back to the trail. I wasn't last to the shelter but only just. It all started with my staying up late last night. I tend to be a bit restless in towns and stayed up till midnight doing nothing really. Out on the trail I have been enjoying at least 8 if not 10 hours of sleep a night. As a result the 7AM waking time for breakfast was very early. The other hikers were getting shuttled back to the trail at 8:30 and I still had packing and journaling to do. As a result I elected to stay til the 11AM shuttle and use their laptop to journal. 
Getting the laptop took till 9:30 and it was having connectivity problems until 10:30. That was fine as a did a lot of the work of my journals on my pocketmail but I have been trying to spellcheck it before I post it and for that I needed the internet. That didn't give me a lot of time to spell check so I delayed again and caught the 12:30 shuttle. They brought me by the post of!
fice to take care of some mail and that was an experiance in its own. As Lois explained the USPS has been trying to close that location for a while due to low usage so the town all pitches in to keep it open. There are quotas that need to be meet so locals buy PO boxes, go in to buy stamps, and ship everything priority mail to keep the quotas filled. It took a long time for me to take care of bussiness because the clerk did everything hand and slowly at that. My shuttle waited and finally at 1 I was on the trail.
The hiking was swift after that even with the 3000' climb out of the Tye River. I pased Spy Rock in the first hour and if one chooses to climb it they will be rewarded with a 360 degree view of the rolling mountains all around. The day was goregus and the view was spectacular as a result. Then up an over Priest Mountain. At Priest Mountain Shelter I read the McGyver was there earlier so I wasn't far behind. I met Speedy and we hiked together for several hours. He hadn't taken a zero since Hiawasi, about 700 miles ago. Wow! Just before Harpers Creek Shelter we came across a shortcut. Mau-Har Trail took one to our intended destination, Maupin Shelter, without going through the all the fuss of 2000' feet climbing and 7 miles of up and down rocky trail. The Harpers Creek Shelter log showed that a lot of people had taken this "cheat" as they didn't sign the log book when they passed by. After that shelter time was getting short and I had 6.2 miles to cover with 1 hour of dayligh!
t of daylight. I just barely made up the 2000' over Three Ridges Peak, about 4 miles, before I had to break out the head light and hike in the dark for the last 2 miles. As the sun set the millapeads came out in droves. It being dark and I was looking almost continually at my feet and saw dozens if not hundreds of millapeads in the trail. Finally I got to the shelter, pitched my new hammock, made dinner and saw Speedy rolling in just as I was turing in. I am very comfy in the hammock so I think I will have a good night sleep.
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