Date: 2004-06-10
From: RipRap Trail

To: Simmons Gap
Miles today: 18.8

You know the feeling you get when someone is watching you? Well, I woke up this morning I had that feeling before I opened my eyes. When I did open them, I got a shock: I was face to face with a slug that was inches away on the outside of the tent mesh. Ugh! I looked around and found that our tent was literally covered with slugs. Ick! Hoover to the rescue¢-he flicked most of them off the mesh, salvaged our plastic shower shoes from outside the tent and removed dozens of the slimey slugs from them. What a way to start the day.We hit the trail early this morning, hoping to beat out the predicted thunderstorms for this afternoon. We now know that weather men in Virginia are obliged to predict afternoon thundershowers just to cover themselves, but most of the time they are right. It rains here nearly every afternoon.We slackpacked Scholar and Lonesome Dove again today, and our plan was to meet up at the Loft Mountain Campground where we are all sharing a tent site afterwards. Our hike today took us right past the campground, and we were tempted to detour off the trail to each lunch at the Wayside on Skyline Drive. But, because we were making good time and wanted to finish up before the rain hit, we settled for eating our salami sandwiches near the trail, and then pushed on.So far we are enjoying the trail in the Shenandoahs. While it is far from easy, the terrain is slightly less demanding than it has been elsewhere in Virginia, and the trail itself is less rocky. We are enjoying the wildlife as well. We saw a bear yesterday evening¢I called it a ¢smallish¢ bear, and Hoover laughed. He said if our bear had decided to stand up, I wouldn¢t have considered it small. He estimates it weighed over 250 pounds, but he looked cute to me. We are also seeing lots of deer, and they have absolutely no fear of humans. The only ones that are cautious are the does with fawns, and even they are less careful than they should be. A doe and her very young fawn wandered past our campsite this morning. Unfortunately the camera was not at hand. And a little later today we saw a VERY young fawn. He was standing in the middle of the trail, and his mother was just off the trail. As we approached, the doe stepped further into the brush, but the fawn was confused and stayed put. Next we heard a little mewling sound ¢Eeee, Eeee¢ and the fawn scampered off after his mama. Too sweet for words, but of course I was late with the camera.   Oh, well. I¢ll never forget the sight or the sound.About two miles short of our destination, Simmons Gap, we started hearing thunder and the wind picked up. We knew the rain was coming, and we stepped up our pace so we could stay dry. No such luck, as it quickly started to pour rain. We slipped into our ponchos and moved on, watching our footing on the wet rocks and slippery mud. We covered those two miles in forty minutes, we were so motivated to keep as dry as possible. Our Mustang with dry socks was a welcome sight! We headed to the campground to find Scholar, Lonesome Dove and our Jeep.   When we got there, Scholar was in her tent. She had developed a migraine headache and had aborted her hike when she reached the campground at noon. Lonesome Dove continued on to finish the day¢s hike while Scholar slept off her headache. While we were waiting for LD to return to camp, Scholar told us that she had decided to get off the trail for a while. She had called her mother to come pick her up tomorrow. We know this is a tough decision for Scholar. She is such a great young woman, we have grown quite fond of her over the past weeks. We hope her headaches are resolved so that she can return to the trail soon.Once LD got back to camp we all did laundry, showered, bought ice cream and beer at the camp store, and cooked our dinner in the breezeway by the store. The weather was threatening, so we went back to the tent site and worked on a crossword until the rain drove us into our tents at 7:30. At Scholar's suggestion. we set a slug trap (beer in an empty tuna can) near the tent hoping that the slugs will leave us alone tonight. Even if they don¢t, I¢m not worried¢-I have Hoover the Slug Slayer on my side!