Date: 2004-09-24
From: Bobblets Gap Shelter

To: Bryant Ridge Shetler
Miles today: 13.3
Weather: overcast clouds

Last evening Hope and Mighty Mouse, two young SOBO women, joined me. It was nice to have the company.   The hic-cups went away in the middle of the night, only to return again at breakfast. They have been on and off during the day, but mostly on. It seems such a trivial thing ¢I have the hic-cups¢ but it realy does interfere with the enjoyment of the day and the hike. To day I found myself wishing that if I could just walk along and enjoy the hike without the hic-cups that it would be the greatest thing that could happen to me. Then I realized that that was why I had been afflicted with the burps ¢ I needed to understand how thankful I should be to be able to just hike on this trail at all. The very ability to even start to undertake this journey, is not a gift that is granted to everyone ¢ and the onset of this ¢trivial¢ complaint was to remind me that I should be thankful for all of the days that I have been able to hike without any significant health problems.      The first part of the day was again along the BRP ¢ the ¢Burp Ridge Parkway¢ for me ¢ and then away to Bearwallow Gap. As I climbed out of the gap over Cove Mountain, I heard someone calling for their dogs. At the top of the mountain, while I was taking a break, two very large dogs appeared out of nowhere, unaccompanied by any owners. These were BIG dogs and they were defiantly interested in my mid-morning snack! I was a little concerned, shall we say, until their owner showed up with two more big dogs ¢ these ones thankfully on leashes. The two loose dogs had radio locators attached to their collars, so that their owners could ¢ in theory ¢ locate them in the forest, although, judging from the amount of yelling and hollering that I had been hearing, with dubious success! The owner who ¢Spent all my life right here in Buchanan County¢ explained to me that they were out hunting bear. He said that the loose dogs chase the bear and ¢tree¢ him. That means that the bear is forced to climb a tree to escape from the dogs. The hunters then locate the ¢treed¢ bear by the barking of the dogs and, hopefully, the radio signals. When I asked him what they do when they find the treed bear, he replied - straight faced ¢ that they let the bear go! They just hunt it for sport, he claimed, and they were out today just to teach the dogs how to go about tracking the bears.   As an aside I discovered that ¢Buchanan¢ is pronounced ¢Buck-cannon¢   A few moments later, as we resumed our hike, I saw the dogs take off through the ground cover with much excited barking. They had picked up the scent of a bear, but it turned out to be an old trail, from the previous night, according to the hunters. Once they pointed it out, I could also see the path that the bear had taken through the undergrowth, lined with bent grass and twisted leaves and twigs. It is amazing what you can see once you know what you are looking for.   Met a fair few SOBO¢s today, some thru hiking and some section. A man and wife team ¢ collectively called ¢Terrapin¢ ¢ were both wearing Kelty 50th Anniversary backpacks, the same model that I had when I started out from Springer in 2003. I haven¢t seen anyone else use them since.   The trail then descended to Jennings Creek ¢ a small river - crossed by VA 614 on a concert bridge. The water in the river was low, so I spent a great lunch break there, sunning myself on the rocks with my boots and socks off. I was tempted to take a swim in an inviting deep pool, but the nearby road and a family car camping nearby deterred me.   Then up and down over Fork Mountain with acorns so numerous that they were like a carpet of marbles underfoot, and on here to this new two story shelter. A great days hiking!Thought ¢      Stop, look, listen, smell, feel, taste, perceive, enjoy!