Date: 2019-03-08
From: Elk Park 

To: Seven Lakes Drive
Miles today: 7.4
Weather: overcast clouds

We hopped out of the SUV about 8:25 this morning. Myself, Baby Girl, and Seylor Jo started out going UP. I think it was about 600 ft of up. That doesn¢t sound like a lot until you start hiking it in the snow. We had fun with it though. There were a few switchbacks, and the snow was so pretty. Even the little bit of bouldering was fun. About 2 miles in we came to the Lemon Squeezer. This is a monumental marker on the A.T. It¢s a crevasse of sorts creating a very tight squeeze for hikers to get through. It is also on an incline and a collector of ice!  If we had been full packing we definitely would have needed to drop pack to get through. Our slack packs were no problem. I went first. One step up... slide all the way back down on the ice. Two steps up...slide all the way back down again! HmmmEventually I was able to put pressure on both sides of the crevasse. With my hips and shoulders, and a lot of muscle I made my way up.  Once I was up there, I was able to wedge myself against a boulder and extend my trekking pole down to Baby Girl. Zip zoom we got her up. It didn¢t get any easier. Right in front of us was a tough boulder climb. I could get up and pull Seylor up by her harness, but it was a no go for Baby Girl. We had to blue blaze around. It was UP from the Lemon Squeezer. Not a difficult UP, just a nice steady incline. The snow was kind of hard up there making it easier hiking. Rhododendron bushes were up and were covered with green leaves. Spring is really springing! At the top was a big ole raven making a raucous. He was making a scene cawing loudly. He would also be the only wildlife we see today. Just a few yards past the raven was our blue blaze taking us to Fingerboard Shelter...and lunch! Fingerboard Shelter was a really nice Shelter made of stone with two fireplaces built right in. Someone had obviously camped there last night. We could still smell the fire. Leaving the shelter we were hiking UP again. Hiking with a twelve year old is a blast! She had been trying to make up a hiking song for us. ¢Our song¢. We¢ve got one now. It¢s called UNSTOPPABLE. It¢s the cutest little song and we had so much fun making it up.  About the time we finished our song we began going DOWN. We could see a couple of round buildings at the bottom. One was a water tower and we¢re not sure what the other one is. It looked like a round yurt with a brick base. Just past the water tower was a logging road. We couldn¢t see the loggers, but we heard them and smelled the scent of burning wood as it was being cut. Maneuvering ourselves around log piles we made our way across the road, then back into the snow on a downhill trajectory.  For a short distance we could see brown flecks of bark in the white snow. Baby Girl, who has been dealing with hiker hunger, just cracked me up! She said Nama those brown flecks in the snow looks like a Vanilla Bean Frappuccino from Starbucks!  Never a dull moment!  With only a couple hundred yards to go we made our way to the road where Papa Big Swig would pick us up. We were 40 minutes earlyUntil Next Time Blue Raccoon (2018/2019)Where¢s your faith?