Date: 2005-03-31
From: Clyde Smith Shelter

To: Stan Murray
Miles today: 10.8
Weather: light rain

I knew it was going to be a bad day when I woke up with a mouse under my sleeping bag. I've had very unfortunate experiences with Spring Breakers lately, and surprisingly they haven't been drunken college boy Spring Breakers but parents with their children Spring Breakers. Heidi and I have been dodging a huge 20+ group of scouts or something the last several days that has been frustrating. We built a huge fire while Dan was here only to have a Dad come and burn his family's garbage (including plastic and aluminum in it). I explained to him that foil doesn't burn & he countered with some NASA aluminum-as-fuel fact, but I definitely dug the exact same aluminum out of the fire pit the next morning (covered with ashes does not equal burned away & campfires do not come close to the heat output of rockets, thank you). This morning, however, topped it all off - a VERY nice father-son team shared the shelter with us but VERY unfortunately brought mouse traps with them. They asked us last night if we would mind if they set them out. Heidi and I were not fond of the idea (we ascribe to the we're in their home theory, as much as I fear and loathe the little critters) but we didn't object. I DID, however, proceed to describe my irrational fear of mice and insist the traps be nowhere near my person. Now I've slept many nights in shelters without any traps and never been bothered by a mouse except for scavenging noises which my earplugs have long since cured. Unfortunately last night my earplugs prevented me from hearing the horrifying noise of a mouse trap crushing the head of an innocnet mouse and then crashing from the bunk above me onto my SLEEPING BAG below! When I woke up, the son or son's friend pointed at my feet and said "Ooh, look" as I cussed and nearly peed my bag when I saw the edge of the mousetrap and then the DEAD MOUSE under the foot of my bag. I had been sleeping on the thing ALL NIGHT, the mouse killing gang had heard the thing fall on me, had been too lazy to wake up, find it & move it and then the kid just pointed at it under my feet the next morning - UNBELIEVABLE! It's my mice Karma for sure...So I spent the day missing Dan a lot more, hiking over the BEAST that is Roan Mtn. (by far the hardest yet if you take away the suck factor of snow in some of our earlier climbs) busting my butt REALLY bad on the ice there and re-injuring my already injured ankle, avoiding the hoard of scouts out and about, and trying to beat the rain predicted for the day all while trying to overcome the trauma of this morning's events. As always though, I've been able to put it back in perspective for tonight and am once again thankful for and able to laugh at even the bad experiences. Reconnected at the shelter tonight with Jack & Jill (2 of our favorites) who we haven't seen since Standing Indian & Four Cheese (Max) caught up with us too. We'll continue to do short days to Kincora so a couple of friends can catch up to us and so we can make our bodies feel better again so we can crank the bigger mileage back up. Going to bed thinking happy thoughts about a mice-free night.Slight afterthought - To the couple from columbia, SC that shared their story with me about walking more & planning a backpacking trip - I've been thinking about you a lot and hoping you're doing well! A moth just flew in my mouth as I was writing that and it was really gross, a drawback to headlamps - today is NOT my day...