Date: 2014-06-29
From: Loft Mountain Campground

To: Loft Mountain Campground
Miles today: 15.3

I woke up at 5:30, the girls were all sleeping quietly so I went back to sleep until 6:30. Meghan fixed bagels and coffee for breakfast. Meghan also brought lots of Trail Magic from home. Cookies from my Aunt Hilda and Power Gels and Power Bars from Lorie, my old boss from the Post Office. Thanks Hilda and Lorie, none of these will go to waste. The girls took me to where I stopped yesterday and I was hiking by 9:00. I saw a couple of deer this morning and two hikers. One through-hiked in 2012 and we talked about his hike. He started in February and finished in mid August. I got to Black Rock Hut by 12:15 and took a quick lunch break. I also wanted to see what the difference was between a hut and a shelter in SNP but I didn't see any difference. At Black Rock Summit there were some nice views and the area was nothing but huge rocks like someone had just dumped them there. Since I am slack packing my pack only weighs about 15 pounds. Just my pack, some food, water, water filter equipment, and items needed in case I need to poop in the woods. With the lighter weight I knew that I would be able to go uphills faster but it seemed to help me go down hills better than up them. I probably average about 3 MPH with the lighter pack. The trail is close to Skyline Drive and crosses over the road a couple of times a day. I got to camp about 3:30 so I could spend time with the girls. We locked the keys in the van so Meghan walked to the Ranger Station to ask for help. She saw several Rangers walking around and one of them had a rifle. They said that one of them would be over to unlock the van. When the Ranger came over he unlocked the car and stayed for awhile and talked to us. He said that they had a rogue yearling bear that was stealing food in the campsites. The mother abandoned him before he learned how to find food so he was looking for easy food in the camp ground. Some campers left all of there food out and left for awhile, when they came back he had tore up everything. He even got into their beer cooler and bit into all of the cans. We later heard that the campers were told to leave the park and fined $350 for leaving there stuff out unattended. The ranger said when he was younger he through hiked the AT and one day he had stopped for the day and set up camp and hung his food. Two hikers came along and left their packs and said they were going to town. A bear came along and destroyed their packs trying to get some 35 mm film that they had inside them. They came back and asked him what had happened so he showed them pictures of the bear having a good time. They asked him why he didn't try and stop him and he just told them that they should have hung up their packs. I showed him the picture of my copperhead but he said it was a brown rattlesnake with the rattles cut off. Someone has been catching rattlesnakes and cutting off their rattles to sell. This makes it dangerous for hikers because they don't see the rattles and think that the snake is not poisonous. He said to be careful with any snake that has a triangular shaped head. We took a short hike with the girls and collected some smaller wood to start a fire. Meghan made chili and we put them in Fritos bags to eat them. We also had black bean burritos, should be plenty interesting sitting around the campfire tonight. We had a nice fire and made s'mores before the little ones went to bed. I went and took a shower before calling it a night.