Date: 2015-06-01
From: Blackrock hut

To: Hightop Hut
Miles today: 21.4
Weather: scattered clouds

Wow - what a day.... It rained severaltimes throughout the night. If it wasn't raining, we were being serenaded by the Whippoorwills. The Whippoorwills were so loud, Count threw stones in the general direction of their calls to try to quiet them. Of course, this only made them move further along. Trudge was staying in the hut where we were tenting. The Whippoorwill sat on the rocks in front of the hut. He threw rocks at the Whippoorwill and it flew towards our tent site. He thought that was funny. Ha ha ha. He didn't know Count was throwing rocks and the Whippoorwill flew towards the hut. There was a Whippoorwill war going on in the middle of the night between rain showers. We slept well considering all that was going on. Our new summer sleeping quilt is wonderful. No more sweating which is a good thing when it is already damp from the rain. We each had a 540 calorie Honey Bun for breakfast. We were speeding up the trail in no time. Fast we were, so fast, we came upon a Mama bear and her two cubs coming down a tree. We startled the bears and of course they startled us. They were on the path directly in front of us as we rounded a corner. We couldn't get any pictures as they hurried down the side of the mountain. The Mama was on her hind legs standing erect. It had to be over 6 feet. Pretty fierce looking to us. We were counting our blessings they ran away from us. It was easy hiking this morning except we still had wet socks and wet boots. We didn't even hike 2 hours before we stopped to let our feet "breathe". Believe me when we say, hiking in wet feet make for sore tired feet. Since it rained last night, you know our normal habit: set up the tent and all our other wet items. So, here we are on a pullout in Shenandoah National Park with our items drying. We looked like hobos. Thankfully it was too early in the day for tourists to be out. As we were there taking our break, Outlier came strolling into the pullout. We packed up and started hiking with her. We hiked around Loft Mountain camping area, we came upon a doe. It just stood there looking at us. We thought it was a lone deer but looking closer, we saw a very, very tiny fawn. As we watched them for several minutes, the mother would wash the fawn with her tongue. Then it nuzzled the fawn. We certainly didn't know deer were so affectionate. We continued hiking and came upon Trudge coming out of the Loft Mountain camp store. The foursome was hiking together again. Well, just for a little. We hiked to another trail head that lead to Loft Mountain Wayside. Outlier and us decided to go there for lunch, a hot, cooked lunch. Trudge didn't want to go. So, he hiked on to a hut for his lunch. We crossed over a beautiful stream where we could have relaxed and put our feet in the stream. But, as with all thru hikers, food wins out over soaking tired feet in an ice cold stream. We hiked on and soon came to the wayside. First things first, off came our wet boots and socks. The sun was shining. So, we used nature's drier to dry these. Then, into a real tiolet. Oh, to use a real tiolet and be able to wash our hands, face, arms, and legs. Yes, we took a mini bath in the bathroom. Next was lunch. A hot cooked lunch on the trail. We never had that before. This hiking in Virginia, even if it isn't flat, might be good. We ordered their famous blackberry milk shake. Now, when we lived in England, we picked wild blackberries - gallons of them - and froze them to use all year. We should have given some of these blackberries to the wayside. The milkshake wasn't very blackberry tasting. And, then, this made us homesick for England. We headed back onto the trail. This time our socks were dry, but, boy do they stink. Even our boots were dry. Shortly after we started hiking, we saw a bear, which we thought was a cub sitting by a tree. As we stopped to watch, three little cubs came from behind. Obviously, we were mistaken. What we thought was a cub was the mama bear. The three cubs scrambled up the tree. The mama just looked at them and walked away from the tree and thankfully and away from us. One little cub scrambled down the tree. (We could hear the claws on the bark of the tree. Sounded like it had some sharp claws!) The cub looked at us and went back up the tree. We decided to let the cubs join their mother. So, we hiked on.   We had 5 ups and downs this afternoon. Lunch must had did a number on us as the first up was very difficult. Then, lunch must have kicked in for Lavender as she flew up the second one. At the start of the third up, we saw Trudge ahead. So, the foursome was together again.    Also, at this up, we looked for trail magic. Lavender's cousin had left a cooler of trail magic for us. Oh, how sweet it was. The cooler had drinks, snacks, ice and a note. There were the best strawberries ever in the cooler. We inhaled these. And of course had nice cold drinks and enjoyed the other snacks. We poured the melted ice into our water bottle and enjoyed drinking the cold water. It was so hot and humid today. We put the ice cubes in our water bottle to have ice cold water later. We also took the nut bars to enjoy later. Thank you so much Louise and Simeon for making our day. We had a lift to our steps as we started up the trail. We needed it as this up was very steep and long. We went over mile 900 on this climb. 900 miles. What a long way we have hiked. We stopped at the top of this climb, finished drinking our cold ice water and ate the nut bar. Oh, the water tasted so good after that climb. As we started down the mountain, we heard a loud crash. A tree had fallen. Talk about loud and talk about scared. After seeing so many bears today, we thought it was bear. Outlier was heading up the lead, she was using her hiking pole and almost skewered a black snack. We could have had snake kebabs. We like kebabs but that kind doesn't sound good. Up the trail we went for our last climb. Finally, we reached the hut only to be meet by a full hut and almost full tenting area filled by section hikers. We quickly claimed one of the last tent sites. We filtered water and washed off in the spring. The water was cold but after the many ups and downs, it felt good to wash the sweat off.   We set up camp and had dinner with Diehard and Outlier. We had heard thunder in the distance today. We thought we had dodged the rain but, of course not. It started to rain just a bit. Good, that was enough. But no, it then started to down pour. And it sounds like it may rain all night. Ugh. Another stressful night of sleeping.