Date: 2018-05-05
From: Rufus Morgan Shelter

To: Sassafras Gap Shelter
Miles today: 9.1
Weather: overcast clouds

To continue yesterday's story, luckily the odorous items I left were still there in the morning. Since I didn¢t have that far to go, I got a slow start to the morning and even got passed by the Florida group. The skies were gray and I wanted to clarify what I needed to resupply. I got to the NOC around 11, just in time for the restaurant to switch to their lunch menu so I could get a burger. Went to the outfitter and general store, which was a bit more catered to rafting tourists than through hikers. I didn¢t recognize a lot of people around, but didn¢t see Admiral Awesome which had been a while. As I was leaving, he said he was headed out to but was also sitting drinking beer so I know how that goes. It is really nice to jump in the river, but since the skies were growing darker I decided to get a move on. It was only 8 miles to the next shelter, but it was all uphill so I bit rough. Not a mile past the NOC was the Wade Sutton memorial for a fallen firefighter. Someone had placed an interesting note there as well so I stop for a bit to reflect. A bit later on a guy I had seen a few times from Richmond Virginia caught up to me so it was nice to have some company for the afternoon. He was an EMT and wildland firefighter, so had some interesting stories. All of the good campsites around the shelter were taken, and since it was supposed to rain I figured I would tent on the ridge so the water would drain down. I think RVA slept in the packed shelter. I set up my tent next to a cool couple from Florida, the woman had hiked a long section of the AT a couple of years ago. It was a bit windy setting up my tent, but I was able to get everything staked and bear bag line hung in not too long. Since I am still learning about the Tiger Wall, I figured it would be good practice to ensure I made everything taut and secure. Definitely put out all the guy lines. Fartender came up, he had been putting in some big days to catch up after his zeros. Was nice to see a familiar face from the original crew.It started to get dark, and when I went to hang my bear bag I realized it was sitting pretty low. So I took that line down and started searching for another tree. I had a couple options but none of them really worked out. At this point it was pitch black and started to rain. I ran back to my tent to put everything inside and went back to the tree I was working on. Not sure how this happened, but in all the chaos somehow the line was hanging with the full bag on it, but was twisted up so I couldn¢t pull it up or down. So here¢s me in the dark and pouring rain, trying to figure out how to get it down and everyone was asleep. It wasn¢t a very big tree, but even tried climbing which probably wasn¢t the best idea. The bag wasn¢t that high off the ground, so I tried jumping and bringing it down. But what I ended up basically doing was breaking the carabiner and tearing the top of the bag from the rest of it. I wasn¢t exactly sure what to do at this point, so I tried to close the back up and hang it on a nearby tree and hope for the best. Sorry again Ranger, but I was done for the day!