Date: 2005-06-01
From: Campsite before Pedlar Lake Road

To: Hog Camp Gap
Miles today: 10.7
Weather: overcast clouds

Well, if I haven't learned anything else out here, I have learned that there is a reason they tell you to hang your food bag at night. Up to now, we have had no problems the few times we slept with our food, but now the honeymoon is over. The best I can figure is that the strawberry caps left over from yesterday leaked out into our food bags. Mice don't just hang out at the shelters! One had no shame whatsoever, and chewed right through the no-seeum netting of our tent, and right into our food bag! Luckily, the first thing he found was dried tortellini, and that didn't appeal to him too much. He turned around and left and bothered nothing else. We packed up and left, glad to have finally gotten to sleep. It turns out that we had only been short of Pedlar Lake Road by a half mile. Bug, Clean, and I readied ourselves for some big climbs, the largest of which was 3000'. We first stopped at the shelter to sign in and catch up on all the latest trail news.Today was quite interesting from a historical standpoint. We hiked past what used to be a community of freed slaves and you can still see the remnants of old homesteads. Next we had our huge climb, we hiked the first thousand and then took an hour break at the fire road. I came up with a poem for this afternoon's excitement, it goes like this:Higher & higher we climbed as the road grew near,When to what did my wondering eyes appear?But two naked hikers wearing only Smartwool gear!I gasped and they laughed!They continued on their merry little way,I'm still confused because it's not naked hiker day!After that bit of excitement, we managed to motivate ourselves enough to tackle the last 2000' of the climb up Cold Mountain. It was a very pretty bald up there, and I paused long enough to take in the beauty of it all and snap some pictures.All in all, we took a good many breaks today. It was gorgeous weather and tough hiking, so we felt compelled to do so. We made it to Hog Camp Gap where there was water listed in the data book. We were all in desperate need of refilling our platypus bladders, so there was no choice but to take the side trail to water. What we didn't know was that the water was at least 3/4 mile off the AT. Mr. Clean Jr. and I quickly came to the consensus that this looked like the perfect place to call home for the evening. It was only about 4:30 in the afternoon, but we had had tough climbs, my arches were hurting (a downside to trailrunners...I need to get Superfeet for them), and it was sooo far off the trail. Bug agreed, although we didn't give him much choice.The place we chose to set up our tents was in a great little pine grove complete with fire ring! Since we arrived so early, we thought it would be perfect to have ourselves a campfire. After setting up camp and gathering wood, Bug set out to build a fire and we all had dinner. Mr. Clean and Bug are having fun stoking the fire and throwing pine needles on it, and I sit here journaling and pondering whether or not it will rain. It has been such a nice evening but the clouds are rolling in and we hear thunder in the distance. We'll let you know tomorrow.