Date: 2009-03-24
From: Birch Spring Tent Site

To: Spence Field Shelter
Miles today: 10.8
Weather: broken clouds

Scariest night so far! I woke up to footsteps and rustling leaves outside my tent. I checked my watch: 3:00am. The tent platforms at this campsite are far apart from each other and I'm sharing one with Egghead, and Grommet, Rocket, and Storm are sharing one 50ft uphill from us. Smiley Mike, Grandpa Hugh, and the Maine girls are camped about another 100 ft away. I ignored the sounds I heard thinking it was just someone getting up to pee (but why next to our tents?), but heard more footsteps about 20 minutes later. I called out to Egghead who was in a deep slumber but she heard the noises right away.The rustling subsided a little bit until around 3:30am, when it sounded like a couple people were running through the woods near our tents, then suddenly stopped right next to us. I called out to whoever/whatever was there and got no response, and I had my open knife in one hand and my pepper spray in my other hand, sitting upright in my tent. Egghead called out also, no response. Around 3:45 I could hear the girls above making noise too, so I knew they could hear the raucous. They thought it was a bear and stared blowing their whistles and clapping. The sounds by our tents were not loud enough to be from a bear, so Egghead got out of her tent and looked around with her headlamp and saw 4 eyes looking back at her...2 deer. I got out of my tent also and saw the 2 deer staring back at us, no more than 20 ft away. They were so cute, nuzzling up against one another. This was also a good opportunity to look at how bright the stars were, it was incredible. My heart was st!ill pounding when I got back into my tent, but after a few minutes, I was able to fall asleep again. Whew!I slept well until my alarm went off, except for a brief moment when I woke up to some owls hooting close by. They are barred owls, whose call is (as described in Egghead's bird book): "who-cooks-for-you, who-cooks-for-you-all". I love falling asleep to their calls. On our way out of the campsite this morning, we saw up-close the culprits from last night's events. The two deer are not timid at all and let us get within a few feet of them and take photos.The hiking today was pretty straight forward and uneventful. I got to the shelter around 4 to claim a spot inside...tonight will be my first night sleeping in a shelter on this trip. Egghead, Storm, and Rocket are all tenting because the shelter is full, and Grommet and I are sleeping on the 2nd floor of the shelter. Someone started a fire in the fireplace in the shelter and ash and smoke are blowing all over us, I know my sleeping bag is going to smell awful in the morning from all the smoke. I really hope the mice don't bother me tonight!Today is Rocket's birthday and we tried our best to celebrate trail-style. Grommet made a birthday banner with an ace bandage that Rocket sported on her backpack all day. We gave her various candy bars throughout the day, and after dinner we pulled out the mini pecan pie (with candles) and bottle of Yellow Tail merlot Grommet's been carrying in her pack for the past 2 days. We are also planning on grabbing some birthday beers in Gatlinburg on Thursday In other news, less than 2,000 miles to go!         One of the two culprits from last night:Spence Field:Smiley giving Rocket a birthday scare: