Date: 2007-11-02
From: Pass Mountain Hut

To: Bearfence Mountain Hut
Miles today: 26.8
Weather: clear sky

mi. 26.8sleep hammockdest. Bearfence Mountain Hut day 113 Today actually worked out to be the mileage I wanted. Best of all I made it before dark. It felt great to open it up and see what I could do. I think that given more time 30 isn't out of the question. The big if is what could I do the next day. Tomorrow's plan is to do 12 with an in and out of a town, so I'll hold that if for another time. I woke up at a good time for once. I got to bed early which helped. I was up, packed, and hiking by 7:30am. Which turned out to be just pasted sunrise. The time change is coming up tomorrow night. Can't say I am looking forward to it. Really it doesn't effect me too much. I am still going to get up before sunrise and get moving at sun up. It just means that is going to be at 6:30 again, so I will be up by 5:30 again. The bad part is instead of sunset being 6:30 or so, it is going to be 5:30 or so. Which is going to leed itself to more night hiking. I'll do that, if you haven't noticed it I just don't like it. I was feeling it today. The miles were peeling off. SNP is really some great hiking. Not real bad ups or down, lots of switch backs. The only trail issues is the fallen leaves covering rocks and things that make you slip. The trekking poles and being careful usually help that. I got to the side trail for Skyland Lodge just before noon, a good 11 miles in to the day. It just so happens I was hungry. I figured why not and walked the .1 over to it. They were not serving lunch yet. It started at 12. They do have a bar, but it opened at 2:30pm. If it was open I would probibly be talking about the 15 I did instead. It was nice to sit back and let someone else bring me the food. The prices were not as bad as I thought they would be. $18 got me onion rings, a soda, chicken pot pie, and gave her a good tip. The waiter in me tries to tip well when I can. I think hikers give off this persona of being bad tippers and I am trying to fix that. I got moving just before 1pm. Not a bad little stop. I caught up with a guy hiking south. We talked for awhile. Mike I think he said his name was, sorry if I get it wrong. Me and names usually don't work well together. He is thinking about doing a thru hike in a year or 2. If was going to hike a little south than turn north and meet back up with a buddy. Good guy to talk with. I gave him what advice I would of liked to have before hand. Basically this. Don't get caught up in the puriest or anyone's else's idea of what you should do. Do whatever will make you happy when you are sitting back home after your hike thinking back. Don't be afraid to relax and see what there is too see. I thank too many people run the trail. Find one comfort food that you can eat and no matter how bad the day is, everything is good. I forgot this one, but don't be afraid to change anything. If something is not working, don't be so attached to it that you are unwilling to change to !something better. All good advice I could have used. But I guess it was good to figure it out for myself. My Zen navigation did get us off track. I was busy talking and neither of us was paying attention and we followed a horse trail instead. The poo should have been a dead give away. Only 15 minuted wasted. Before lunch I got off course due to bad blazing and trail marking. The trail crossed the road and there was a single blaze after I crossed the road. Which should mean go straight. There were no trail marking anywhere. A path was formed though. I looked around and walked around a little. It turns out I needed to follow the road 20 yards then turn in. Silly me expecting a double blaze to show a turn. They are everywhere else in the park for every small dogleg or switchback on the trail. I walked and talked with Mike for awhile. I was surprised that he kept the pace up. He made a comment that kind of surprised me. He said I was the nicest thru hiker he has met yet. I took that as a good compliment. I think me must have met a lot of those purist or I am a thru hiker look up at me as I look down on you people. Most are not like this, but there are a few that give the rest of us a bad name. Really under 1% of the people that use the AT are thru hikers. Anyways. He had top take a break and I had to press on. Too bad, he would have been an interesting person to talk with. I made it to the Hut 15 miles in at about 2:20pm. The next one was 12 miles farther. After my lunch at the Lodge I was really feeling great. I figured why not. I took a quick break and headed south. I was booking. I wanted to see what I could do. The trail was also really chill. I think I figured I was close to 4 mph for the first 30 or 45 minutes. I backed off to a good 3mph after that, which is still moving. I even took a couple minutes to talk with some day hikers staying in the park. I think I could have set up somewhere in the offical campsite close to someone else and been fine. I was just one a mission to get somewhere. I also had one of those classic deer stories everyone talks about in the SNP. I was hiking along looking around and figuring up how much further I had to go when I saw something move up ahead. I stopped and looked close. It was a deer about 10 yards ahead along the trail. I look again and it is an 8 point buck. Usually they run away. I see a good number of does, but not a lot of bucks. I take a few pics of him. A lot actually. He looks at me a little and goes about eating the grass along the trail. After a couple minutes I had seen enough and was ready to get moving. Now it is the rutting season and I really don't want to provoke it. When it looked straight at me it looked more mean and less like Bambi. I asked it to move, nothing. I banged my trekking poles, still nothing at it looked annoyed. It had at this point slowly moved to the right side of the trail. I had just enough room to walk around it as far as I could get to the left. Walking through the woods!wasn't an option here. When I walked too fast it turned and looked. So I inched by it. I don't want to say I was close, but I could have reached my arm out and slapped it. I finally got by and slowly walked away. I watched him a little and he just kept going about his business. This whole time the deer was thinking to itself, "who are you and why are you distrubing my meal?" (If you can't tell I am reading another Douglas Adams book. The 3rd book in the 5 book trilogy, yes he calls his it a trilogy even though it is more than 3. Something you have to understand his humor to fully appreciate.    Now the trail did something completly unexcepted. For only the second time and first since the Whites, the AT was the easy way around something. Bearfence mountain has a little rock scramble on top. It is a blue blaved side trail. I would have taken it if it wasn't close to dark and after hiking 26 miles. So I happlily stuck with the AT. I got to the shelter after the sun set behind the mountain, but it was still light. Sometime around 6:20. Today felt great. I did the most miles slack pack or not. I even got close to an hour stop in at lunch. I was tired and sore, but not too bad. I really didn't start to hurt until I added 2 liters and 4 pounds to the pack with 7 miles to go. The last shelter was a trickle and supposed to be a reliable source. This one in the guide said prone to fail in even the below average year. But it was for nothing. Spring was flowing good enough and had a couple good pools to dip out of. Now I have gotten water out of springs with frogs or salamanders living in it. But this is my first with a crawfish. Just a small one, but he was there. That lets me know it had water all season and is good quaility. Tonight I have some company. A couple just married this summer out for the night. Nice people. They are tenting near by. We talked for awhile, had a good fire, and they even shared a tasty beverage. I need to refill mine in town.