Date: 2004-04-29
From: COSBY KNOB

To: Groundhog Creek Shelter
Miles today: 17.8
Weather: scattered clouds

Rain is in the forecast for the next couple of days, so the tentative plan is to get up early, get as much hiking done as possible, and find a shelter as soon as the rain threatened us. Today worked out pretty well, to begin with. It took no time at all to get out of the Smokies, so we got in a few good miles. However, we soon came across a beautiful series of streams and waterfalls, and just had to stop. The stopping soon turned into a quick dip in the streams, which turned out to be not so quick. The water was so incredibly cold, but refreshing at the same time. A few people passed us by, looking at us a bit oddly, but hey - - it felt nice. After about an hour or two, we headed on. Ironically enough, we ended up passing up all those people that looked at us oddly, playing in another stream just a few miles past us. Hey, it was a hot day, and I know I didn't need a personalized invitation to a stream like that. We soon found ourselves heading up Sugarloaf Mountain. Okay, I'm thinking of actually renaming this mountain to Stupid Ass Climb. Maybe even Ridiculous Stupid Ass Climb....because it was one. I think a 5 or 7 mile constant climb up to the top, on a hot day, where we made it to this odd-looking "aviation" tower. An odd "aviation" tower that had posted signs about how death could happen if anyone interfered with the radio "survelance." And there were odd markers around, with different pipes and valves and other oddities on this "aviation" tower that just made me wonder what kind of "survelance" they were doing up here. I'm just sayin...Anyway, once at the top, we decided to stop for a while and rest. After stopping and resting for about an hour, we decided that we may as well just go ahead and eat. Of course, there was a small problem with this. We had both been dropping jolly ranchers into our water bottles, to give the water some flavor. Works well for a refreshing drink throughout the day, but not so much when it's the only water you have. But, this minor detail didn't seem to thwart our plans. So, I heated up my watermelon jolly rancher water for my mashed potatoes, thinking that if I added enough cheese and spices to it, then the watermelon taste just wouldn't be present. Ya, whatever. First off all, my mashed potatoes were pink. Pink and watermelony. So, more spices were added, and more cheese. Now, pinkish-orange, and slightly watermelony, with a touch of heat. I ended up dumping half my block of cheese into it until I could manage to have a meal of not-quite watermelony mashed potatoes that were still orangy-pink. However, my meal turned out to be much better than Cliff Dancer's. I really don't know what flavor he started out with, and I think he started out with some kind of noodle-vegetable mix, but his meal was a lost cause. It did not matter what he put in it, it was horrible. We both learned a new lesson today, and I hope that anyone that reads this walks away a more well-versed person, at least in the cooking arena. After choking down the meals, we got up and decided to make it to the shelter, I guess about 3 miles away....and had about an hour of sunlight left. I, for one, didn't really want to do the night-hiking that night, and moved as fast as I could. We ended up pulling into the shelter just as the sun started disappearing, and ran into Deeds and Publix, who were both staying in the shelter. Then, we all drifted off to sleep....for a while. In the middle of the night, I awoke to Cliff Dancer threatening something. Apparently, he had been watching this mouse struggling to climb up onto his pack all night, and it had finally made it. Apparently, the verbal threats were not intimidating the mouse, and I finally reached out and slapped it off the pack. I slapped a mouse, and it went flying! We all kind of laughed about it, and tried to go back to sleep. A few minutes later, the mouse was back. These mice out here are tough. Apparently slapping them and sending them flying across the shelter is not enough to scare them away. He jumped back up on Cliff Dancer's pack, and started chewing away. At this point, Cliff Dancer yelled "You're gonna die, Mouse!" and just clocked the hell out of that mouse. That was the last mouse problem we had for the night, and we all drifted back off to sleep. Rain is still in the forecast tomorrow. Bleh.