Date: 2003-03-29
From: Betty Creek Gap

To: Wallace Gap/Rainbow Springs CG
Miles today: 9.1

We didn't get eaten, mauled or savaged last night. Instead, mice chewed through a ziploc bag and crapped in our dinner plates! We were breaking camp when two guys came through from Carter Gap Shelter. Yesterday they had encountered a very upset young woman called Katie at Beech Gap. She had put down her backpack intending to go pee behind a thicket of rhododendrons. Instead, a bear came right out and reared up to within six feet of her. She screamed and shouted, and banged her hiking poles together for several seconds before it came down on all fours and loped off. All this happened only about an hour after we had passed through the same spot. We had about two and a half miles to reach Albert Mountain, all uphill but not taxing. It was another heavy, misty morning which served to magnify all kinds of distant noises. The drumming of woodpeckers as usual, but also a strange noise we had been hearing for a couple of days now. It was as low and dull as thunder but clearly not that. The rhythm was much like someone trying to start a petrol engine, turning slowly at first, then faster to the point where it seemed about to burst into life but went dead instead. What was it? And throughout the morning there were the bloodhounds. Distant at first but then closer and closer, they had something cornered. Something big, for in all the baying there were one or two yelps that suggested a dog had been injured, maybe killed. What a fight was going on, and we were getting close to it. By a forest road at the base of our vertical climb up Albert Mountain, we stopped for an energy break. Within minutes an SUV came round the bend, its cargo of five boxes in the back, each with a hole in the side, and the head of a bloodhound sticking out of each one. They were making the most almighty row and were obviously as happy as Larry.It was time to get re-started. A very steep walk for ten minutes or so, when Verity remarked that it was a vertical drop to our right. I hadn't really been paying attention - it was misty, the hillside was on my left, and the usual series of rhododendron and young trees were growing out of the right side of the path, so it was like walking along the kind of arboreal corridor we did for half of every day. With the big climb just ahead, I was in a "Sod the View" mood in any case, but it turned out I had just negotiated "Bryson's Ledge" without even noticing! Then it was into the "vertical" rock climb. Far from vertical, you did have to use your hands, you had to stop and work out your steps at each section, so it was slow. But it wasn't physically demanding, and after 20 minutes we were at the top. What a feeling! Why had I worried about this for so long?We spent some time round the Coweeta Hydrological Tower at the top ( a project dedicated to improving fresh water flow off the surrounding hills without causing erosion), tried to to get some sense of what was surely a fantastic view beyond the rolling mist, and then got on our way. The afternoon hike was generally downhill, through more open forest land, and uneventful except for an encounter with a tall man going the other way. Whereas most hikers seem to walk oozing stress and effort, this man ambled, as if drinking in everything around him. He stopped, introduced himself as "Algonquin", from Long Island, but a Cherokee who spends time in these woods every year, making what contact he can with his kin and his (lost) heritage. He asked our names, repeated them back to us perfectly first time, (the first person we have met who hasn't had difficulty understanding them), and said "Verite. Now that's a hard name to live up to!" A lovely man, we spoke for ten minutes, and when we parted, he thanked us for having taken the time to speak to him. No trouble at all, it was a privilege.About 4.00pm we walked into Rainbow Springs Campground and registered for spaces in the bunkhouse at $14 a bed. A wonderful shower and hot microwaved pizza supreme later, we settled happily into our quarters, made cosy by a wood-burning stove. We had beaten the weather, the day had mostly stayed dry, with no prospect of the snow that had been forecast days ago. The bunkhouse holds twelve, in four three-level sets. Only two other people were there - "Smoky Mountain Steve", at first encounter a slightly strange guy who put me in mind of Romano (the cranky head surgeon in "ER"), and "E-Dogg", a young girl from Maryland who has been laid up here for several days with a bad knee. Shortly before we retired, two young women arrived, Andrea and Katie. Not just any Katie, it was "the" Katie, who had warded off the bear. She was amazed that I had heard her story, but the AT grapevine will surely make her famous. As we got ready for bed, it was markedly colder outside, but we went to sleep content that another milestone had been achieved - our first 100 miles on the AT (103.7 to be exact).