Date: 2003-06-18
From: Blackrock Hut

To: Simmons Gap plus
Miles today: 17.1

*** BEAR ALERT ***When we woke up, we noticed something was strange - it wasn't raining out, and it wasn't even misting. That was a shocker because the forecast called for several more days of rain, and the way things had been going we expected at least that. Our tent was still wet & dirty, but at least we were dry. We hit the trail on the early side - 8:30 - because Moo had woken 42 at about 6:30 without telling her how early it was.As we hiked, the sun came out! What a lift to our spirits. We actually had some views, very nice. Saw a deer with a fawn who had white polka dots on it, so cute! They weren't scared of us at all and moved only a few feet away as we neared them.After about 7 miles we came to the Loft Mtn Campground - the Shenandoahs have several campgrounds with tent sites, campstores, and restaurants, and this was one of them. We were psyched to get a hot meal, but it turns out that the store & restaurant were a mile away - too far for us to walk (since that mile would not get us any closer to Maine), so we decided just to eat what we were carrying and lighten our packs. Before we started eating, though, we took advantage of the sunshine and hung up our bear rope to dry out our tent, fly, tarp, air mattresses, sleeping bags, socks...basically everything we were carrying. Then, as we were about to make lunch, Moo spied Otto's truck near the campsite we were at - he was scoping out sites for the people he was slacking. We were glad to see him because he's a great person - the fact that he had his truck with him and could give us a ride to the restaurant was secondary. Really. Moo and Otto went and got burgers while 42 watched our stuff, and she snacked a bit because she figured there wouldn't be anything for her to eat. Surprise - Moo came back with a garden burger for her, yum!Otto & Raven had to go, but then Oreo & Buttercup showed up...we wound up taking a 3 hour lunch break. It was productive though - all our stuff was dry, for the first time in days.We got back on the trail and went to the next hut (shelters are called "huts" in the Shenandoahs) for dinner. It was still nice out, so we decided to hike a few more miles after dinner. Stonehenge arrived at the hut before we left and told us that rain was expected in the next couple of hours, but we decided to go for it. We walked pretty quickly for the first couple of miles, trying to cover ground before the rain. We crossed Simmons Gap and decided to go another mile or so and then find a place to stealth camp. As we headed back into the woods, the trail wound us around near a river. We heard a tree branch break somewhere nearby, but neither of us said anything. A minute or so later, we heard another tree branch break from the same direction, and we both looked over -- and we saw a big ole BLACK BEAR speeding down a tree near the part of the trail we had recently crossed. We looked up, up, up the tree, and there in the crooks of a couple of branches were a couple of cubs hanging out. We wanted to watch the cubs, who were so cute, but we realized that a black bear + cubs = get the hell out of there! Only problem was, we didn't know where the mama bear went after she got down from the tree. We decided to keep going along the trail, and we flew down that trail! After about a half mile or so we saw some deer and that comforted us - deer wouldn't placidly hang out in the woods near us if an enraged black bear was bounding our way, right? We kept on going, though, just in case our theory wasn't right. A little while later we came upon an ideal stealth camping site and decided to pitch our tent. Believe it or not, we got the tent set up before it started to rain. We hung our food, along with suntan lotion, soap, toothpaste, and bug repellent, on a bear rope FAR away from our tent. We fell asleep to the pitter-patter of rain on our tent.