Date: 2017-09-08
From: Stanimal's Hostel in Glasgow

To: Johns Hollow Shelter
Miles today: 20.1
Weather: scattered clouds

¢You have a nice section of trail ahead of you,¢ said Bob, our hostel shuttle driver as he dropped us off. The weather is crisp, sky clear, all foresaging a perfect hiking-temperature day. Are we being lulled? Is Mother Nature a pool shark daring us to double down? (Frodo: Umm¢¦ I don¢t think foresaging is a real word¢¦)Less than two miles along we stop at the first shelter, Brown Mountain Creek. Pippi, a section hiker as bouncy and bright as the day, as happy as her full-page entry in the register complete with sunny illustrations. There was another guy there, a flip-flopper who will end his hike soon at 2000 miles. He was glum and not talking. I wonder how it was for the two of them, sharing a shelter last night. (Frodo: So now we¢re curious. Is he stopping by choice? Does he have to go back to school or work? Is he injured? Having a miserable time? If he wasn¢t talking, how did you know he flip-flopped and is going to stop? You¢re leaving us hangin¢ here!)¢BEAR!¢ I missed it, but Not-A-Moose has bagged hers. I had stopped to pee. Dang. But not long after I saw her jump and come to a sudden halt. Black snake. Harmless, but five feet long. http://www.trailjournals.com/j...In the cove formed by Bear Mountain Creek two Forest Service signs told us of a freed slave sharecropper community. ¢The hills and hollows of the Appalachian Trail hold many secrets.¢ If you had your own horse team the landlord got one-quarter of your crops. If the landlord supplied the team, you surrendered half. One half! One sign said the community was abandoned. Interestingly, the other said that the land was sold to the Forest Service. The 1920s were a booming economic time. I have to wonder if they were forced out to make the National Forest.Just before lunch at a road crossing we came across the strangest dog. He seemed abandoned, wanted to latch onto and follow us, hound-dog sized. He had not one, but two radio collars, and big initials were bleached white into his sides, like a billboard. I¢d never seen anything like it and neither had NAM.A local couple starting on a day hike set us straight. ¢That¢s a bear dog.¢ Hunters set a pack of them loose in the morning and then track them digitally. (I still don¢t get it. Why? Can they tell when the dog finds a bear that way? Man, you are being so cryptic today!)High on Bluff Mountain we came across two handlers with six dogs on a chain. This is their training season. They are out without guns training the dogs to tree a bear. Does anyone tell the bears that it¢s only training?  http://www.trailjournals.com/j...We saw our first lake in what seems ages. It was dammed, so it was man-made, but it was the first one in forever. http://www.trailjournals.com/j...At Bluff Mountain Peak where NAM and I posed for the photo above, there was a sobering plaque nearby. Far down below, in fall of 1891, a teacher sent her young students out to gather firewood for the wood stove. One never returned. Ottie Cline Powell was 4 years and 11 months old. In spring his body was found here at the summit, a 7-mile climb from the schoolhouse.  http://www.trailjournals.com/j...The last 8 miles before tonight¢s shelter were unusual. Not just for the many views. They were waterless. An 8-mile stretch on the AT with no water is rare indeed. Nite.