Date: 2010-03-08
From: Missouri

To: Henry Gap
Miles today: 9.0

It was a gorgeous day- upper 60s - lots of snow-melting sun. We finally rose around 9:30am, in the furthest tent from the shelter. Didge went up to the shelter to retrieve our food from the cables. He thought about what was to happen for the rest of the day. "I went through cycles of anger and look at the bright side kind of thinking over and over" The bear cables were simply empty. No food. He looked in the shelter and all around- nada. No mention of anything in the register.         The cable was hooked back to the tree- so no way it was somehow liberated by a bear. Didge was enraged that he had walked up the hill to get all the food we had and it simply was not there. He came back to tell me-Our food's not there-"What do you mean its not there? " impossible occurence to me. no way! denial. vacant shelter, nothing in the register. I hadn't been super careful about getting every piece of food to hang- so we had a couple granola bars I had left in a pocket of my pack. I am kinda hypoglycemic- I don't function well without food- when I hit a wall I am done- I need food. So of course we call H&U. How did I ever hike without a cell phone? We are due to arrive at their house that is only 1/2 mile off the trail this evening, so at least they are not too far away. I'm thankful we have a signal. We have five miles to hike to Woody Gap where they meet us with one of our food boxes and a picnic lunch.         In that five miles, Didge has to stay behind me- he doesn't need food, he is fueled by anger and unchecked would fly down the trail leaving me in the dust. Both of us have a lot of thoughts raging through our minds- but mostly just "what the hell!!!" I try to rationalize some scenario that isn't someone outright stealing our food. The story of Stumblewolf's sketchy friend Munch comes to mind. The fact is though- we did sleep in late and we were way down the side trail to the tent spots- so far our tent was not visible from the shelter. It is possible that someone thought the food was abandoned and decided to try to do a good deed and pack it out.We both thought a lot about what we would have done had we not had H&U nearby to call for a rescue. The Hiker Hostel has a 5pm shuttle from Woody Gap- I guess we would had to have taken that. I would have struggled to make it there and been very cranky. Instead, H&U come meet us with soda and sandwiches and we enjoy a nice lunch at a picnic table there with them. While we are there, other hikers showed up waiting for the shuttle later that afternoon. H&U had one extra soda that a guy named Nature Boy ended up with. He had hiked the 20 miles from Springer today and had passed 44 people! He had started the trail Jan 30 and was already 570 miles up the trail in Bland! He hiked that entire way in snow and was taking a break at a nearby family member's to let the snow melt before he proceeded further north. This is his third? thruhike in the last few years.H&U take our packs back to their house and we slackpack the rest of the day- 4 more miles to Henry Gap. (slackpacking = hiking w/o a pack). The climb out of Woody Gap led to our first really nice open views of this hike- dry rocky ledges on which to sit and bask in the sun and absorb the view. At Henry Gap, we take a short side trail over a ridge and boom- we are in someone's backyard. Its weird cause hiking along the trail, you would have no idea you are only a few hundred yards from "civilization". It's about a half mile walk down a gravel road with many houses to H&U's. How fantastic would it be to be have been living half a mile off the AT while going through chemo and radiation? Mary Ann was diagnosed with breast cancer a few months after I was- both of us had 2009 hiking plans ended by breast cancer. They had rented out their place in Asheville, so they moved in with their daughter in Blairsville GA for treatment here, but then they lucked into this place here right off the AT, owned by a friend of their daughter. Her last radiation treatment is tomorrow and we are happy to be here to celebrate with her.I cannot express how wonderful it is to have friends here, especially friends that can probably "get" what we have gone through in the last year better than anyone. It seems to meant to be and we feel very cared for. The only positive I can come up with regarding getting our food stolen is that we had the ability to deal with it better than anyone else out here. While it is a pain and inconvience for us to deal with replacing the stuff sacks, ziploc containers, etc., it might have ended someone else's hike. I could see someone saying- the hell with this- I don't want to be out here if there are people like that out here. I still want to believe it was a misunderstanding.It was great to finally have walked here to H&U's, our home away from home. We had another great dinner and more sodas and a couple well deserved beers.