Date: 2015-08-25
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: broken clouds

I arrived at Outfitter 76, in Franklin, NC with time to spare. Over the summer I ordered a Western Mountaineering sleeping bag thru them so I was anxious to see if it was worth the investment. They had it all ready to go and even stuffed it into the compression bag I had brought along. Since the others hadn¢t arrived yet, I asked if one of the guys would go through my pack and do a shake down. He did, and the only suggestion he had was to lighten up my food bag line. What he did was to pull the inner cord out of the sheathing, leaving me with just the sheath, or wrap. Now, did he finish this task? No, he did not. Instead he got it started, did half of it, and handed this glob of cord back to me telling me I could finish it when I got into the campsite for the night. Right, just what I wanted to do late in the day, when there is water to collect and filter, tent to set up, dinner to make and food bags to be hung, using this bird nest of a mess he handed me!The ladies arrived and we headed across the street to a wonderful bakery to have a late afternoon snack in case we never got to eat again and to chat a bit, getting to know each other. We hit it off immediately, chowed down and then went about the process of shuttling cars to various trailheads.We started at Deep Gap and hiked north to Standing Indian Shelter. Since we knew we would be getting a late afternoon start, and they knew I was a rookie, we only had a little less than one mile to hike to the shelter. This was my first experience with a shelter, and I must say I found it a little gloomy. None of us was interested in staying in the shelter and there were reasonably level spots for our two tents and one hammock. Setting up my tent, sleeping bag and pad went smoothly, although it takes at least 42 breaths to inflate my BA sleeping pad! Thought I was going to pass out. We didn¢t have to face fetching water as we just carried full containers from the car. Then it was on to making dinner. My stove went together with ease and I was pretty pleased with my meal, eating every bit. Hanging the food bags didn¢t go so smoothly as Shutterbug and Wild Thang tried to teach me how to heave that rock bag up and over a high branch while not get thwacked in the head, or losing the rope entirely. I did try, honestly I did, but after repeated attempts it was obvious I was doomed to failure. After kindly telling me that it takes some practice, they took over with immediate success. Whew! I was so happy to go crawl into my tent and retire for the night. It was comfy and cozy and I thought I would fall asleep quickly. Wrong. Once I stopped noisily thrashing around on my sleeping pad, I realized how many sounds there were outside! Plunk, nuts falling on my tent. Brush rustling, armadillo? Raccoon? Bird noises Bats? Owls? Shutterbug is saying something from her tent¢¦.. is she saying there is a bear? No, she is mad at the mice dancing on her tent. Someone is snoring. How the heck can anyone sleep out here in the woods with all this action going on? Not to mention trips to the privy¢¦. ok, nearby bushes. Every time I move, rustle, rustle, crinkle, crinkle, my sleeping pad is so noisy. I fear I am keeping my pals awake and they will never want to hike with me again. So I hold really still¢¦..and suddenly its morning.