Date: 2009-06-16
From: VA 620/Trout Creek

To: Johns Spring Shelter
Miles today: 14.8
Weather: light rain

THREE BEARS TODAY!The rain kept pouring down in the morning and I curled up inside my wet tent, wet sleeping bag, and wet sleeping pad and attempted to sleep. I probably had about 1.5 hours of sleep. Damn friggin¢ rain! Today turned out to be such a tough day on all levels ¢ mentally and physically. I started off the day at an elevation of 1525 ft. and climbed up to 3020 at Dragons Tooth. The South to North (NOBO) first side of the mountain was certainly tough ¢ a lot of boulders and rock climbing ¢ but the second side of the mountain was just downright dangerous. Mind you, it was absolutely pouring down with rain and I had to descend rock faces that were straight down. The Roanoke Conservancy had actually placed metal wires into the rocks to help hikers catch their footing. I had to be ever-so-careful not to slip, which required extreme concentration. I was already exhausted as hell and my spirits weren¢t all too high, given the weather and my overall condition. During the descent, there were times when I had to actually stop to really think what would be the best (and safest) way to go. I even took off my pack and threw it down 15 ft. to the base of the rock faces. Damn, that was a tough climb/descent. As I arrived at VA 624, I was freezing cold and I knew that I had to seek some shelter. So, I immediately headed .4 miles down the road to the Catawba Grocery Store, where I immediately organized all of my belongings outside and headed on in to get some hot chocolate. While hanging out there, I ate two cheeseburgers, one hot dog, a bag of chips, and some other loose bits of food. Odin and EO joined me later on, but then decided to skip the next six miles of the trail in order to get into Catawba. Jedi and I were the only ones who actually continued on to hike the next eight miles of the day. I passed Jedi and arrived at Johns Spring Shelter in complete darkness. Rattlefoot, a young chap from New Jersey, was already in the shelter at the time, airing out all of his belongings. Jedi arrived soon after. The problem about this shelter was the fact that there was NOOOO water! As it was pitch dark out, Jedi and I wandered all over trying to find the blue-blazed trees that would lead us to the non-existent water source. The AT Companion stated that there was a source .25 miles away, but we later found out that there was none to be found. On the way to find the source, we heard this loud growl and snarl coming from the tree. It sounded as if an animal was using its claws to scrape down the tree. When we located from where the noise was coming, we saw that it was a HUGE mama bear with two cubs up in the tree. She kept sliding down the tree, trying to make as much noise as possible to send us away. We initially backed up and headed back to the shelter, wondering what the hell we should do. After working up some balls, we decided to go back and bypass the three bears to continue our search for water. The mother bear continued making noise, but we passed quite nonchalantly and carried on looking for water. After a good 40 minutes of looking for the source, we gave up and had to go to bed thirsty as hell. We also had to pass by the three bears again, which we did carefully this time, as we were downhill.