Date: 2014-06-13
To: A long day gets longer
Miles today: 0.0

Byrds Nest #3 Hut to Mathews Arm CampgroundWe wake to damp tents from a light rain during the night, a trifling compared to the storm we weathered at Rock Spring the night before. We are planning to hike 13.9 miles on the AT today plus another 0.7 mile (according to AWOL) on the side trail to Mathews Arm Campground. Leaving our tent site, we notice another Copper Spur 2 like the new, lighter weight one we are using and take a few minutes to compare notes with its owner, Toasted Toad. We climb briefly after departing Byrds Nest #3, then make a steep 2-mile descent with areas of slick rock made hazardous by steady rain as we hike down to Thornton Gap. Along the way, X spies a bear cub clinging briefly to a tree trunk before it drops into thick underbrush and disappears.The rain lets up, and we are almost dry by the time we reach Elk Wallow Wayside late in the afternoon. Suuz has been thinking about a blackberry shake and grilled ham and cheese sandwich all day after remembering the Trail Journal entry describing the Troverts¢ meal at Elk Wallow two years ago. We¢re disappointed the shake machine is not working, but Suuz¢s ham and cheese and X¢s turkey club wrap make for a tasty early supper. We won¢t be needing our pasta side and pouch of chicken tonight and are resupplying tomorrow. We pass them along to a through hiker we first met at Lewis Mountain Campground.A group of hikers, many familiar to us, are resting and chatting in a picnic area behind the Wayside. We see Tortellini and Just Paul, who passed us earlier today, and Blueberry Bear, who we first met a few days ago at Lewis Mountain Campground. Diana and her Dad stop for a Wayside meal, and City Slicka hikes in from the Skyline Drive. It¢s a congenial crowd, and we hate to leave, but we still have a steep 2-mile climb to the side trail to tonight¢s campground and another 0.7 miles hiking off the trail (or so we think).One of the clerks at the Wayside tells us that Mathews Arm, though listed as a primitive campground, has plumbed restrooms and paved roads and is popular with car campers. We worry that we might arrive too late to get a tent site on a summer Friday evening and devise a plan to have fast-hiking X go on ahead to claim a site for two tents. She sets off at a brisk pace, and Mew Mew and Suuz follow with a picture of X¢s AWOL page for this section on Suuz¢s phone.Without that picture, we might have missed the turn for Mathews Arm which is labeled only as the Tuscarora Trail on the signpost. Then we begin descending--in more ways than one. The trail is steep with loose rocks underfoot. After 0.7 mile we come to another sign post, ¢Mathews Arm Campground 0.5 mile,¢ and a half mile farther, yet another sign post, ¢Mathews Arm Campground 0.5 mile.¢ With at least another half mile of steep, rocky downhill to go, Mew Mew and Suuz are saying bad things about AWOL¢s guide.At this point, we are rewarded with the most incredible bear sighting of the hike. A large black bear is clawing fiercely at a fallen tree trunk in a clearing near the trail. It grabs the log and hurls it up in the air, flipping it over to get at grubs buried on the other side. It continues clawing and eating long enough to take pictures and videos. When we reunite with X, she tells us she watched a bear cub on the trail near where we have just seen the big bear.Our tents dry quickly on the line X has strung. We stow our packs in the bear box at our tent site and go up to the restroom to clean ourselves up and wash out our hiking clothes. After pre-drying them a bit under the hand dryer, we hope they will dry overnight on our clothesline.We see lightening in the distance and hear muffled thunder as we zip the tent flies for the night. We¢ve hiked 15.6 miles today, enough to tire even experienced section hikers, and we are soon sound asleep.-Dr. Suuz and X