Date: 2022-09-24
From: Rock Spring Hut

To: Baldface Mountain
Miles today: 15.6
Weather: clear sky

I was awake early in the morning, about 4:30, when I heard something near one of the bear hangs. It was in the sticks and the grass, not in the tree. I keep my headlamp on quickdraw for times like this but I wanted to listen for a bit before I lit it up. Jasper heard it too. ¢Dad!?¢, he said loudly. Not scared but urgent. ¢I hear it, too,¢ I answered. I unzipped my tent and pulled back the vestibule flap. Three clicks on the headlamp bathed the half-meadow in light. The spike buck was back, browsing in the grass close by the bear hang. He was unfazed by the light. I turned it off and laid back down. He browsed his way around the perimeter in the opposite direction from last night. The night, nor the morning, were as cold as we expected though it was a chilly dawn. We all walked out of camp after breakfast in multiple layers of clothing. Big Meadows Wayside was our goal. Big Meadows is one of the largest areas I. The park for services, camping, lodging, and day hiking. The wayside is on Skyline Drive about halfway between Thornton and Rockfish Gaps on the north and south ends of the park, respectively. It was a 4-mile walk for us we did in about an hour and a half, arriving about 9:30. We did the normal wayside stuff: food, restrooms, resupply. Joni bought a 6-pack of bagels and a block of cr me cheese. The lady at the register asked if she¢d like them toasted. Yes! With butter? Yes! On the griddle? Yes! They were divine. I boiled water outside for coffee (why didn¢t they have coffee inside?). We ate donuts, sausage biscuits, fudge, honeybuns, pop tarts, and YooHoos. Jasper took care of the resupply for the next 3 days. My parents, fresh off the plane from western adventures, are readying the camper to shadow us down the Blue Ridge Parkway for several days. We will see them on Monday or Tuesday (today is Saturday). Jasper was buying food to tide us over. We left the wayside around 11:00 and carried on. About 5 miles later, somewhere just past Bootens Gap, the boys whooped at Joni and I through the woods. They were behind us. I whooped back. Usually, the whoop is a question: ¢Where are you?¢. We often use it at trail splits or junctions to make sure everyone, in front and behind, has gone the right way. An answering whoop means ¢Here I am,¢ and the ¢conversation¢ usually ends there. This time there was a third set of whoops. ¢Come back¢, we heard one yell. Joni and I turned back. ¢I tweaked my knee,¢ Baxter yelled.He was sitting in the trail, in no obvious pain. We got him up and walked him up the trail to a place we could sit down for our late lunch (the wayside had done it¢s brunch time job). He seemed to be managing and didn¢t seem to be injured significantly. ¢Tweak¢ was looking like a good word for it. We ate lunch on the side of the trail. I took off his ill-fitting knee brace and wrapped his knee in KT tape for full support. I basically created a custom knee brace (with the help of some internet pictures). We divvied up all his gear among the 4 of us and, after a rest and a pep talk, headed south again. Slow going on top of slow going. We have had a Thanksgiving end date in mind since long before we started the hike. Thanksgiving would give us 175 days in the trail - a smidge shy of 6 months. Early on, there were days none of us thought we would make it (July 2 comes to mind). There were days in New Hampshire and Maine when we weren¢t sure when we could finish but we knew it was possible. There were a few days in Pennsylvania when I thought finishing by Veterans Day weekend (November 12) was a possibility. Now, I have resigned myself to not knowing and, even better, not speculating. Baxter¢s injury has taken the ¢knowing¢ out again. This has been a really hard truth for the boys to digest. We kick around mileages, averages, and dates several times a day, always with THE GOAL - Springer Mountain - in mind. But when there is an injury, the goal changes along with the actions needed to achieve the goal. Namely, we change from ¢get miles!¢, to ¢get this injury better.¢ In our experience, getting the injury better has involved fewer miles, less weight, and more days off. Fish and I were hiking in the back today when we passed by Bearfence Mountain. The view and the rock scramble across its summit are both missed by the AT, though the AT parallels a trail connecting those two features. Fish and I got to the second of two access trails ¢Cam we do the rock scramble?¢, he asked. The others were ahead, Texas Pete having recently been injured, and it would be a 0.4 mile loop back to where we were standing. ¢Sure¢, I said. We dropped packs and took off up the trail, doubling back across the ridge. We were going true ¢wrong direction¢ on the loop and passed 3 dozen or more day hikers picking their way along the jumble of boulders. It was great fun. I remember, after finishing Mahoosuc Notch, looking at Texas Pete and wondering if he wanted to go back and do it again. Rock scrambling is fun. Lewis Mountain Campground was our next stop. We considered staying the night there with its camp store and showers but decided, despite Texas Pete¢s knee tweak, we¢d push on a bit further today and get more than just 12 miles out of it. He was making good progress without gear in his back and was feeling good. We were shooting for a site in a fire road beyond Baldface Mountain. We weren¢t sure if it¢s soar or it¢s condition. When we got to the top of the climb up Baldface, there were some adequate sites near the trail. Not quite smooth or level, they nonetheless gave us enough pause to explore further. Ninja Squirrel and I pressed into the undergrowth behind the campsites and waded onto the broad, round, forested summit of the mountain. We found some level ground among ferns and oaks that we chose as our home for the evening. Bear bags are hung, bodies are in tents, and we¢re all settle down for a good night¢s sleep.