Date: 2011-05-22
From: 5.4 miles before Bearfence Mountain Hut

To: 4.9 miles past Rock Spring Hut
Miles today: 21.8
Weather: overcast clouds

(In which my tent is not destroyed by a bear)River Rat and I hike out in the morning, both of us having slept surprisingly well on our rocky sites thanks to both of our separate night hiking adventures the night before. In the first two hours of hiking we see two different bears. River Rat stops excitedly for the first, having seen his first two bears ever the day before, but by the next bear -- his fourth and my sixth in the park -- even he begins to grow tired of them.We stop at the camp store for ice cream, soda and candy bars (me) and hot dogs and beer (River Rat). We see Checker who heard from the ridge runner about the continued bear problems at the shelter I had planned on staying at the previous night. Apparently Moosehead's tent was annihilated, destroyed by the bear while Moosehead was eating dinner at the shelter and the tent was empty of food. This is the latest in a long string of incidents with the same problem bear and Checker, River Rat and I are all three happy that we heeded the warnings and stayed away.By lunch time we reach a side trail for a wayside. Having skipped the first wayside the previous morning and already gotten food at the camp store River Rat is unsure if he wants to make another stop, but I convince him come with me on my quest for another blackberry milkshake. The wayside is supposed to be 0.2 miles off trail, but after we've walked 0.3 miles we see a sign telling us we still need to walk another 0.7 and we realize we must have missed the correct side trail and taken a later one. River Rat is ready to turn back but I decide to forge on and he reluctantly follows.An unexpected mile of off-trail walking in the middle of the day is enough to put most hikers in a bad mood, and though I'm focused on thoughts of a milkshake I feel bad for River Rat every time we pass a bend in the road and the wayside fails to appear. When we finally arrive I order a milkshake, grilled cheese and fries. As before, the food is nothing special but the milkshake is divine. River Rat, dismayed by the food prices, buys a 75 cent beer and drinks it outside at a picnic table we share with German Sheppard when he arrives.As they drink, a man walks up and plops another beer each in front of River Rat and German Sheppard. We chat with him and learn that he hiked four hundred miles of a thru-hike back in 2005, his name being String Bean back then, but now simply Dale. The trail magic and conversation cheer River Rat, and he decides to buy a hamburger after all. When he finishes it we see Dale and his wife again as they walk back from the restaurant to their car and I mention that we're looking to get back to the further trail head. They are eager to help out, offering to drive us anywhere we want to go and letting River Rat use their cell phone to get in touch with his girlfriend. Dale, seeing my pale skin, insists that I take the baseball hat he was wearing to keep the sun off, and River Rat and I are both sorry to say goodbye when we get back on the trail.The two food breaks and wrong side trail have slowed us down, but we still make it to the next shelter before 5pm. There I meet Notamoose, a southbound section hiker out for a few days who, she eventually lets slip, hiked the PCT a few years earlier. I run into her on my way up the hill to the privy, toiletry bag in hand, and end up chatting with her for a good half an hour on the trail. She too quit a job in computers to go hiking, and has since gone back to school for musical accompaniment. It's the longest conversation I've had with a women all month, and one of the longest I've had with anyone while no hiking, and I'm disappointed that she's only on the trail for a few days and going southbound at that.I think of a story that Swift told about hiking the AT up to Vermont and then following a women he met up the Long Trail instead of continuing on the AT to New Hampshire. The woman, he learned afterward from a fellow hiker, was already married, though she didn't wear a wedding ring or act like she was married. Listening to Swift tell the story, you can tell that despite the heartbreak, he would do it all again.River Rat is on a mission to meet his girlfriend in Harpers Ferry in five days on the 27th, and is determined to hike at least 20 miles every day until then to make sure that he doesn't fall behind schedule. I decide to stick with him, for the time being anyway, because I enjoy the company and find it easier to hike with someone who is driven to move forward, drafting behind their motivation the way a bicyclist uses the wind screen of a lead biker to pedal more easily. River Rat plans to hike slowly or not at all for the eight days with his girlfriend, so I am unlikely to see him during that time or for a while after, but I realize that he has already passed Where-in-the-Blazes as the hiker I've hiked and talked most with.Near the end of the day we find ourselves once again between huts, neither of us having stayed in one yet, but tonight at least we find a sweet tenting spot, flat, soft and far enough away from the trail, water and (we're pretty sure) roads. The only downside is that it is visible from a side trail with heavy pedestrian traffic from the nearby resort, and though I normally avoid proximity to so many day hikers, I go along with the campsite. We set up just before dark to avoid attracting any attention, legal though we think the spot is, and by then the pedestrians seem to have returned to their resort. In the distance thunder rumbles softly and we can see the flash of lightning, so we hang our bearbag quickly and duck into the comfort of our tents before the coming rain.