Date: 2008-04-27
From: Rt 311 at Catawba

To: Trout Creek
Miles today: 14.0

Today didn't end quite the way we expected, but we are working with it.Gene and Dorothy were so gracious to us. They let us crash all our clutter in their home, took us out for a great Italian dinner and best of all got us out of a nasty thunderstorm last night. Our only regret is that we didn't take them up on the offer of the hot tub last night. They offered it to us last night when we came in from dinner, but we were so beat we just headed to bed. This morning as we packed up we saw the hot tub out back and were disappointed that we hadn't stayed up for it. They made us a wonderful breakfast and by 7:30 Gene was driving us back to the trail.The trail this morning was nice, not steep, not rocky, the weather was cool, but not cold. It was nice hiking weather. I was dreading what was coming next. I had never heard about the Dragon's tooth before yesterday. We passed two couples who had taken a slackpack day over Dragon's tooth and were very glad they had. We heard about rebar ladders and such.Turns out though, I thought Dragon's tooth was a blast. I might not have been as comfortable with it if I hadn't had some experience rock climbing, but I thought it was fun maneuvering our way over the rocks. Roo had a blast. She just scurried up and over.Coming down the hill on the other side I had my first full 'face plant'. Some areas of the trail are deeply buried in leaves. It's important to walk carefully watching for rocks that are hidden. Usually I do okay. This time however my foot caught on a stick. I tried to kick it loose but it wrapped itself around my ankle and yanked backwards pulling my feet out from under me. Luckily it was in a big pile of leaves because I landed face down. Owl was the only one around to see and she was kind enough not to take a picture. It was very good she was there because without her I'm not sure how I would have gotten up.Soon after things changed. We have found the maps of this area to be very unreliable (personal pet peeve). Apparently they are old and the trail has been rerouted quite a bit. We thought we had three short downhill miles to Pickle Branch shelter. Not quite.When we thought we had a mile left to the shelter the trail shot off in a different direction. After winding through endless switchbacks we came to a sign for the shelter. It said it was 1/3 mile off the trail. It didn't make sense to us since a section hiker had just told us he saw the shelter and Tigger's GPS showed it in a different direction. We decided to pass the sign and follow the GPS.About a mile further on we realized the trail was not taking us closer to the shelter. We had to dig out our maps and Thru Hiker guide and make another plan. We decided to walk on down to Trout Creek and find a place to stealth camp. Not much further up the trail we found a spot where it appeared someone had previously camped. It was beginning to drizzle, so we decided it was time to set up camp fast.We had just enough time to set up the tent, get our gear situated inside, eat a quick dinner, hang our foodbags in a tree and get settled in before the sky opened up full blast.Just about the time I started writing this, what had been an off and on drizzle turned into a downpour. It was so loud Owl said she couldn't read over it and she went to sleep...that's pretty serious. :o)This is by far the hardest rain we've experienced in the tent. So far we seem dry. But I'm hoping it doesn't rain all night. Owl is right....it's noisy!Rabbit, Owl and RooJoshua 1:9