Date: 2008-07-26
From: Monson, ME

To: Horseshoe Canyon Lean To
Miles today: 10.0
Weather: scattered clouds

Last night was great fun. We arrived at the General Store a few minutes after the music had begun. Tim, the owner saw Owl through the crowd and waved her in and passed her a fiddle to play. He pulled up a chair for her in the middle of the group. I think she was a little overwhelmed but she held her own and had a great time. I finally pulled her out around 9:00. It was hiker's midnight and we were hiking in the morning. But I think she got her fill of fiddling, for the time being,We checked out of Shaw¢s around 8:00 and headed for the trail. We knew there were two river crossings ahead to be concerned about. We had spoken with one NOBO who had taken a six mile road walk to bypass a river ford that came up to his chest. Talk among the hikers was that our first ford would be easier, the second more risky.By 10:00 we were at the first river. From what we could see it didn't look too deep, however the area that was in the shadow of the tree was hard to see. Owl offered to take off her pack and scout it out. I told her I thought maybe that's something I should do. She pointed out that I might not be as steady as her. Just a few minutes earlier I had gotten my feet tangled in some sticks and had taken a face plant on the trail, barely missing a bog. So I couldn't argue that she has better balance. She headed out walking slowly and made it to the other side with no problems. The water came to the top of her legs and had a pretty strong current in the middle.She came back across, we all loaded up our packs and waded into the water. Soaring crossed first and we held Roo back. I wanted someone to be on either side when she swam it in case she needed help. I wasn't too worried about her because she is such a strong swimmer. She made it fine, though she had to fight hard against the current. We all made it across without incident.From there we only had a 2 1/2 mile hike to the shelter. It would make this a very short day but the only other option was to hike another ten miles, crossing the second and more risky ford. We opted for a short day and a little more time for the floodwaters to go down. We arrived at Horseshoe Canyon Lean-to about lunchtime.We were the only ones here when we arrived and it seemed like such a quiet, lonely place. But that didn't last. Soon a father-son section hike team, Low Clearance and Shadow, that we had met earlier in the day came into camp for the night. We've had a great time visiting with them. Low Clearance was telling me a story about how he had taken a group of scouts to the AT down in NC/TN to hike and do trail work. I didn't realize at first that he was talking about this year. He mentioned that they stationed their transportation at Uncle Johnny's and were working on the trail near Roan Mountain. When I later found out they were from Oklahoma and they had done this back in June suddenly the pieces began to fit together. When we were at Uncle Johnny's there was a bus from Oklahoma parked there. We commented on how far they had come and when we hit that newly maintained section of the trail, the one that was a mud slick from the rain that Roo almost took me out on...that was their trail work. Wow, small world.Also a NOBO named Topo stopped in to chat. She gave us some great beta on the river ford ahead for us. She had walked up stream and found a much safer route.After that a large group came into camp and set up down the hill from us. Turns out they are an outdoor leadership group and have the same plan that we have for the next few nights. So we'll probably see them again.Since we got in early I had time for an afternoon nap. We set the tent up but left the fly off so it was nice and comfortable but the bugs couldn't get to us. I slept sound. Then we had a great first night out dinner of roasted hot dogs. Low Clearance started to talk about what is in hot dogs but I quickly stopped him. Not something I want to talk about, especially when eating one. We topped it off with chocolate raspberry Milano cookies. Yum!The sun is heading down and it's bedtime. This morning I was having a hard time with the hike. I was missing Greg and not looking forward to this section after hearing so much complaining from NOBOs. This afternoon has raised my spirits though. A couple more days of nice hiking and I think I'll get my footing back.Rabbit, Owl and RooJoshua 1:9