Date: 2007-05-15
From: Clyde Smith Shelter

To: Overmountain Shelter
Miles today: 12.9
Weather: scattered clouds

I started the days activities with a fart. I was quite upset when everyone laughed, because frankly we all do it as a matter of course with no particular fuss made about it. Maybe I am held to a higher behavioral standard because I should be old enough to know better. But, when I eat beans do I not methanate?I saw a bear today! I entered a large valley at the top, heard a lot of branches breaking, looked way down and saw a small bear running. At first, I thought it was really neat, but then i began wondering where mom was. Seeing no further activity, I assumed it was an independent but young bear. So I resumed walking, only to encounter a switchback that sent me right back towards the bear. At this point I began whistling and singing the El Capitan March, using my poles for the percussion part. After I passed where I'd last seen the bear, the trail switched back again so I just kept whistling for another 45 minutes, adding in the Radetsky March and American Patrol for variety. I could imagine the bear saying, "I promise not to eat you, just PLEASE stop that noise!".My next chance meeting was a group of 4 firefighters for the Forest Service. The conversation started with them offering me water. Very nice. We moved on to talk about the nature of their work - they are there to fight fires, but there is plenty of work when no fires are brewing. I remember thinking that this might be a cool job for Tatonka. They also answered a question that had been on my mind. There are lots of remnants of old human habitation that appear to be decaying slowly. In some cases, stiles are built over incomplete lengths of fence. The firefighters said that once the Forest Service acquires land, any "artifacts" are allowed to degrade naturally as a matter of policy. That explains why there are places where you can actually walk around the stile rather than over it - a situation that sounds absurd, even funny. They also explained that Forest Service policy now is to buy land competitively, not to condemn it and take the property. That means it can be quite expensive, because there is a big market for forest land for residential and vacation home purposes.This was a major mountain climbing day - Iron Mountain, Bear Mountain, Roan Mountain. I was feeling proud of how hard I was working and how successful I was awhen I encountered Doodles and Bum Bum coming DOWN the mountain without packs. The had gotten a ride to Carvers Gap near the Roan Mtn summmit so the could go DOWN the mountains instead of up them, and could return to their packs that evening to spare them the trouble of carrying them. OK for them, but it made me even more pleased with myself. There has been a lot of discussion about the integrity of slackpacking in the opposite direction.   I take no stand on this except that I'm glad I did it the way I did. I hiked alone most of the day. I did run into Candy Bar, of the Crockett group, and Politician at the very end of the day. Both of them outdistanced me after a while. In fact, in Candybar's case "a while" was about a quarter mile.A lot of the folks strolled into camp late that night, bragging about all the trail magic they found - beer, doritos, snickers. Us earlybirds, missed it all, darn it. As it turned out, they had the dregs of the doritos bag, which Candy Bar and I shared with great gusto. All the regulars of the last 2 nights showed up, plus 3 little old ladies from Gatlinburg on a section hike.