Date: 2013-08-13
From: End Little Swift River Pond Campsite

To: Piazza Rock Lean-to
Miles today: 6.6

Old Goat notes: We had a very nice campsite last night with a real flat spot to set up the tent on. It was great to sleep and not feel like you are sliding out of the tent in one direction or another. We use sleeping pads that make it fairly comfortable sleeping on the ground. Very rarely do I feel a rock or a root through the padding, it also helps that we check the ground thoroughly before setting up our tent. The temperature was comfortable last night, we're carrying our winter bags because we expect it to get cold while we hike. We awoke to a beautiful morning outside our tent. It was easy to do our morning chores of getting our food out of a tree, eating breakfast, breaking down our tent, and packing our backpacks. We found a problem with our food this morning that needed to be corrected. I had a brainstorm idea of bringing waffles from home for breakfast. Not just one day but two. My initial plan was to vacuum pack the waffles before packing them. Unfortunately they would not vacuum and seal so I used ziplock bags instead. There is a reason you can't get shelf life waffles in the store...they get moldy and spoil. That is exactly what happened to ours, so now we were down two breakfasts for this 4 day stretch of trail.We finished our chores and hit the trail by 7:20am, which is a nice time to start. As we headed down the trail the thought of being down meals wasn't fairing so well in my mind. Somewhere before we reached the road we were going to cross an idea came to mind. Why don't we hitch a ride into town and buy the food we need. When we hit the road we were apprehensive about leaving the trail for fear that we'd get stuck in town. Luck would have it that the first car heading to town gave us a ride to the grocery store. We bought the food we needed plus a sandwich for lunch and a bottle of milk. We dumped our trash, ate our newly bought lunch, and headed back to the road. With luck again, the first car that came along gave us a ride back to the trail. The trail gave us one additional gift today. When we arrived at the trail it was starting to rain. We quickly packed up and darted into the woods where the tree cover kept the rain at bay. We had 1.9 miles to hike to our intended shelter and luckily we arrived dry by 12:30pm. Now we're in for the afternoon and night and out of the rain. Check 6 notes:Old Goat covered today very well, so all I'll add is that it's been raining steadily (and fairly heavily) since we arrived at the shelter. It's quite early to stop, but it's wonderful being out of the rain. A little while ago a nice couple joined us. They started hiking Southbound (from Katahdin) on July 28th with the intention of doing a thru hike. This past January my doctor had some tests done on my ears and discovered some permanent damage to my right inner ear. The damage affects my equilibrium , which affects my balance and confidence while hiking. Since my inner ear isn't giving normal input, I sometimes feel I'm going to fall going downhill (or downstairs if the stairway is dark). The damage is from my first fall in PA during our 2006 hike. I am very cautious hiking now. It's very frustrating. If you follow our Trail Journals on the web site, you may have noticed Old Goat didn't finish hiking the Long Trail as he intended. He delayed to be available to our son and daughter-in-law as they bought a new (new to them) house. They closed in July. We helped them move into their house and Old Goat helped with a bunch of projects. We are so happy we were available to help. The delay in hiking plans worked out okay. He probably will finish the LT sometime, and we're on the AT now. All is well.