Date: 2008-04-21
From: Rod Hollow Shelter

To: Bears Den Hostel
Miles today: 9.9
Weather: light rain

For sleeping inn the shelter last night I slept pretty soundly. I work a few times as the steady pounding of the rain would increase or there was a good peel of thunder but otherwise I slept until early AM. I don¢t recall exactly but figure we were up sometime around 6 or 6 :30 in the morning. Once again I was the slow one out of the shelter doctoring my feet and trying to figure out what the best things to were today would be. Everything I have with the exception of one fleece shirt and a pair of socks are wet. I opted to wear the rain pants and underwear with out shorts and my short sleeved shirt. No matter what I do in my rain gear you heat up and cook with in a half mile unless it is the dead of winter. I think then it can be as much as a mile and half.We had the Roller Coaster today. We had not set how far we would go today but we have 13.5 miles of 10 climbs in this section. The Bears Den Hostel is about 10 miles in. We would meet there and decide if we were going to push on or not. We at least wanted to try to get some clothes dried if possible. I left the shelter at 8:30 and was at the Roller Coasters first hill by 9:00. The rain was still hanging on and showed no real sign of letting up at all. They should call this section the flume ride when there is this much water on the trail. Due to the limited space for the trail it is pretty gullied. This gives it the extra benefit of funneling all the water down the tread way when it rains. At one point we experience a new phenomenon that I like to call ¢Quick Leaves¢. It looks like you are about to just step on leaves until you realize that your foot just keeps going down into the water. All the leaves that had been compacted over the winter were floating in layers upon the rain water. In some cases your foot could go down as much as four or five inches into this sponge of leaves. The climbs did get tougher as the day went on but I think that it is the downhill that I hated the most. There was always the fear that one wrong step and down I was going to go due to the mud or slick rocks. On the uphill we kept ourselves occupied by looking for Morel mushrooms. We had collected a pretty good sack of them. Once you find the first one it is easier to find the second and third and so on. At one point as we crossed a stream I pointed out the fiddle heads of ferns. Doggiebag was all about trying some of these. I kept trying to tell him that these are something that most people cook and that they try to get them very young so they are as tender as possible. No such luck, Doggiebag, just had to try them now. As he chewed and spat I tied had not to laugh too loud as I kept repeating the fact that they are often cooked. I finally gave up and tried to convince him to try some skunk cabbage as well. He would go for it I guess my laughing was just loud enough to tip him off, or maybe it was that first word of Skunk.As I came to the last stream crossing at the bottom of the hill leading up to the Bears Den I met two section hikers Pansy and Rustle. They had said that they looked upstream and down but found no other way across other than the rushing ford that was in front of us. They were getting ready to put on their sandals to make the crossing. I went out and found the rock that I think people had been using under about 5 inches of water. With a good vault using my trekking poles and one foot on that rock while leaping to the far bank I made it getting only slightly wetter than I was before. I watched as they and Doggiebag who had arrived crossed the stream and then it was Dry clothes here I come.Now according to what I have read and seen on the maps it was only to be 1.8 miles from the stream crossing (Spot Run) and Bears Den. It seemed a whole lot longer. Of course it is almost all uphill and that could have had something to do with it or maybe I was just ready to be done of the day. My fingers were pruned up and even though I was protected from the rain I was wet in my rain gear and I know what was causing the wetness and it was fresh rain water. I turned the last bend and made it to the hostel at about 3:30 or so.Once at the hostel and down in the hikers room It was all about getting the boots off as my feet really began to hurt from the blisters and to get a bit to eat. Some other hikers came in not long after me and so at the hostel was Doggiebag, Pansy, Rustle, Just Bob, Transfat, Double Cheese, U Turn Bob and Myself. I got some loner pants to wear so I could get all my gear dry. I think that they may have been women¢s PJ¢s they were a bit snug but I liked the Red Scotty Dogs that were printed all over them. I am not a proud man. But I was a Dry and warm man for the first time in two days. The couple that run it Hopeful and Redwing along with their 1 yro daughter Hikelet are great and really make it a great stay.Today¢s Numbers Ascended 3340 Descended 2410 6 duration 6:53 hrsDaily Mileage 9.9 Grand Total 340.8