Date: 2018-06-24
From: Blue Hill Rd mile 1530.2

To: Jerusalem Rd mile 1540.1
Miles today: 10.1

I slept like a baby! I woke up around 6am and saw my clean laundry folded on the desk at the end of my bed. I showered, packed and enjoyed some fresh fruit River was kind enough to bring me from the breakfast room. We're planning to have breakfast with Pek Wan and Danny at Rio where we can have corned beef hash and home fries. We met them in the lobby at 8am and Pek Wan had brought the car around. She's so thoughtful!We navigated to the restaurant and the meal was delicious. Freshly squeezed orange juice, eggs, hash and potatoes. Yummy! After fueling up Pek Wan drove us to Carr's hardware store so River could get a can of fuel for her stove. They only had the Coleman ones, which are finiky so Pek Wan is going to pick up 2 canisters and bring them next Saturday. She, Danny and their niece Lauren are coming to slack pack us, do a little hiking of their own and possibly provide some trail magic. I'm excited to see them again and enjoy a town dinner Saturday night. I'm extremely food driven at this point!They dropped us off at the trail head where we got picked up yesterday and Danny gave us some chews made by Cliff bar. I'm looking forward to trying them. River and I split the lemon lime Gatorade from my Mom and Dad and brought the fruit punch one to give to another hiker. As we were getting our gear on Goldilocks popped out of the trail at the road. I called her over and she took the Gatorade and a Luna bar Pek Wan offered and was greatful. We said goodbye and River and I began the climb we had seen was waiting for us yesterday. Within 15 minutes the sweat began pouring off me and I reached for my nice clean bandana to wipe my face so it wouldn't sting my eyes. My bandana has never smelled so wonderful! I don't know if Pek Wan used fabric softener or what it was but all day long, even drenched with sweat it smelled great. It made me think about the love of my family and more about yesterday and how my Mom even gave up her backpack to Sour Patch when we were at the shelter because the one she'd purchased to slack pack with had torn. I'm still in awe and so happy to have seen and hugged and kissed them all. River and I planned for a short 4 miles today based on yesterday's forecast. But when we saw the radar this morning it looked like the thunderstorms may be north of us. We hiked to the Mt Wilcox north shelter where we agreed the night before we'd stay. But the weather was holding out and we felt good so we took a break and decided to hike 4 more miles to the Shaker campsite. With less than a mile to go, it did start to rain but only lightly. We made it to the campsite and just as we were getting ready to set up our tents it started to rain heavily. We set up and dove in so that we could get out of our wet clothes. I set up in the back, and River set up on one of the platforms next to the picnic table and privy. Once I was inside my tent I changed into my pajamas which were nice and dry and then it stopped raining, so I sent her a text message to let her know I was going to be putting on my rain gear and heading over to the picnic table to cook dinner and use the privy. It was just before 5pm. She agreed that was a good plan. While I was getting my shoes on I heard some commotion which sounded like celebration. I wondered what hiker had come into the campsite that was cause for celebration. But when I stepped out of my tent and headed over towards the picnic table I realized the commotion was to scare away a mother bear and her two cubs, so I dashed back to my tent, dove in and grabbed the whistle off my backpack. When I returned to the area where River and Goldilocks were, I blew my whistle but mama bear just wasn't leaving. She was very close to the camp and she was next to the bear, moving in between the bear box and the picnic table area. Apparently Goldilocks had been cooking her dinner at the picnic table and heard a slight rustling in the bushes behind her. When she turned around she saw the mother bear and 2 first year cubs. Mother bear had her nose in the air obviously delighted with Goldilocks culinary skills. She grabbed the pot that she was cooking her dinner in and went over to Rivers tent where River was putting on dry clothes and explained to River that there were three bears in Camp and she didn't know what to do. River instantly said make noise and started whistling so that's what the initial commotion was. I summoned the other two hikers who were setting up their tents off to the side ( Aligator and Eddyman) they heard the celebration but didn't know what it was either, so I asked them to come and help us scare away the bears. No matter how much noise we all made the bears were not really fazed. It only sufficed to keep mama bear from coming all the way to the picnic table. After 30 minutes or so we were exhausted, and when we stopped making noise mama bear would come right down the trail towards the picnic table again. Eventually we took all of our food bags and we retreated to the back of the tent site, and stood there quietly hoping that the baby bears would come out of the tree they had hiked up into and Mama would take them and leave. But no such thing happened, Mama stayed and the baby bears stayed in the tree. We were able to shoo Mama bear down the trail enough so that we could pack up our tents and grab the things off the picnic table that had been left there, and we exited through the back side of the campsite bushwhacking our way back to the trail. River called a shuttle driver who picked us up an hour later on the nearest road 2 miles north on the trail. Just as we spilled out onto the road a calf came crawling under the fence from the cow pasture on the opposite side of the road and right into the road just as we saw a minivan headed toward it. River jumped out into the street to stop the vehicle and shoo the baby cow back under the fence. Ironically the minivan was our shuttle driver Debbie. She drove us into Lee where we got rooms at the Super 8 Motel, followed by an 8:30 dinner at Friendly's across the street. The only one who had eaten dinner was Goldilocks. It was 10pm when we got back to our rooms. Debbie will pick us up at 8:30 tomorrow and bring us back to the trail where we exited tonight. What a day! A planned 4 miles turned into an adrenaline rush and a 10.1 mile day. But I got ice cream!