Date: 2018-04-27
From: Little Laurel Shelter

To: Bald campsite
Miles today: 12.5

Today I did not want to get out of my tent. Everything was wet. My rainfly was wet, my shoes were wet, my sleeping bag was wet, my pack was wet. It was still raining as well. I eventually managed to pull myself out of the tent. I went to grab my food bag and noticed something that looked like ice. It wasn't ice but plastic sticking out of my food bag. A mouse had chewed through my bag even though it was hung up on a bear cable. Luckily it only chewed into my garbage bag. Booga bear mentioned if the mouse protectors were bent they could get to the bag. However, they looked perfectly fine. The mice at the shelter must be circus mice. I tried fixing the bag with duct tape but it was too cold for the tape to stick. Also last night I forgot to hang some of my food in my side pockets. I put the food in plastic bag then stuck it the tent's vestibule. Within 2 minutes there was a mouse in it jumping around. It seemed that he was stuck in the bag or he was jumping with joy as he was eating my cliff bar. I felt like smashing the bag with my boot, but I let him live to steal food another day. Amazonian had the same issue with her food bag. The mice here are well fed.  Luckily the rain stopped around 9 pm. We eventually rolled out of the shelter around 11. It was slow going. The trail was a muddy mess from the rain. It was difficult to gain traction. It caused us to use more energy as we hiked. Eventually, we climbed up onto the ridgeline. Except the whole mile was rock scrambling. It took us longer than expected to get across those rocks. We were treated to gorgeous views of the valley below. The sun was shining through the clouds.  We made it to the first shelter and hung up our tents to dry. The power of the sun really dries out a tent fast. The shelter was called Jerry's cabin and it had been cleaned up by him. He hauled garbage bags full of trash from the site and installed a fake telephone and light bulb for fun. It was the first shelter with a cat! We called the cat Jerry and believed that it housed his spirit. It cried for food from hikers and was given food in return. It went into Booga bear's trash bag and stole an empty cheez it bag. I bet this shelter didn't have any mice! They definitely need a cat at the last shelter. When our stuff finally dried we hit the trail again for the next shelter.  There were huge flat balds after the shelter. They were pretty easy to hike since they were really flat. There was another short climb and we arrived at big butt mountain. It had a large rounded rock at the top with a crack going straight through the center. It was big I cannot lie!We heard that the next shelter was contaminated with giardia or the noravirous. Some people had vomited in the shelter. We were planning on camping before or after it since we didn't want to get sick. On the way there we saw Jeans and Slayer camping on a small bald. We decided to stop there even though we still had some miles to go before we rolled into Erwin.  Booga bear tried to set a bear line but got his line stuck in the tree. I found a large stick to help him pull his line down. Amazonian, Francis, and Jaipur showed up. We were all really surprised to see Jaipur since we hadn't seen him in days. He just shows up out of nowhere sometimes. Jeans and Booga bear failed at making a fire. The sticks were just too wet. We needed the hiker Wet Sticks to help us out. He's so good that he can start a fire with water. We all hung out eating our grub. 9 pm rolled around and hiker midnight set in.Tonight in my tent I hear frogs in the distance for the first time. More signs of warmer weather.