Date: 2015-07-17
From: Bromley Mt. Ski warming hut

To: Camp site 1676.1
Miles today: 22.0

Who sets an alarm on the AT? Someone did last night as we were woken by the alarm. We didn't go back to sleep. Instead we started hiking early today. We said goodbye to the other hikers in the main room of the warming hut. We hit the trail at 6:40.    We crossed over a ski run to start the day. Then we had a steep rock climb down from the ski trails for about 20 minutes. The trail leveled a bit. Lavender heard something in the forest at the start of the level section. It sounded large. She looked and saw a moose!! Yes, our first moose on the AT. Count was leading. Lavender told him there is a moose. By the time he walked back, the moose was gone. He started to walk into the woods and we heard crashing in the woods. The moose was on the move. We started on the trail again when the moose crossed over the trail behind us. Wow, it was big. We both saw it. It crashed through the woods on our left side. We heard trees breaking and branches cracking. Then, the moose crossed over the trail in front of us. Wow again! Then, it turned and was on our right side. It crashed through more trees and branches. Then it crossed over the trail behind us. In fact, it circled around us 5 times! The last time it crossed in front of us, it came onto the trail and looked directly at us. Ok, we were getting a bit nervous now. There were some rocks we were going to climb behind. But, the moose turned off the trail. We heard it running away. So, we hurried up the trail. But no, the moose came back behind us and was coming towards us on the trail from behind. We started to run. Then the moose turned. We didn't look back again. We just ran as fast as we could with our heavy packs on. We wanted to see a moose, but, not that close!!    Then it was time to climb another 1000 feet to the top of Styles Peak. We stopped there for a break to enjoy the view. While there, Castaway and Bandit came by and we asked if they had seen the moose. Sure enough they had. We had a good time talking about our moose encounters. We were all a bit pumped up by seeing our first moose. Soon break time was up and we were on the trail again. We were in a pine forest now and it smelled really good. We had a fairly nice trail through this section and we were making good time. That is until we started the climb up to Baker Peak. This was very steep and the last 1/4 mile was a rock scramble to the top. It was a hard climb but the view we had from the top was worth all the climbing. We stopped for another break here to rest and enjoy the view.    We continued on and by 12:00 we had done 12 miles, we call this 12 by 12 and we hadn't done this for quite some time now. We made it to Big Branch Shelter around 12:30 and stopped for lunch. Bud and Bud Light were there. We hadn't seen them for a few days. It was nice to catch up on how their hike was going and what their plans were for the next couple of days. There was a large brook by the shelter so we went down to soak our feet in the water. While climbing over the rocks by the water, Lavender slipped and banged up her shin. She had a huge, huge, really huge, bump on her shin. She put her leg in the water to let the cold water take down some of the swelling. It didn't seem to help much as the bump on her shin seemed to be getting bigger. We ate lunch by the brook to allow her shin to soak more. We went back to the shelter. Lavender tied a bandana around her leg to help control the swelling. She also took vitamin I (ibuprofen) for the pain and swelling. Soon enough we were hiking again.   We climber most of the afternoon. Not a steep climb, but a climb. The trail wasn't giving us any easy miles. It was rocky, almost like the Pennsylvania rocks. But of course we hiked on. Bud and Bud Light were talking a break. So, we joined them. We finished our break before them and hiked on up the trail. We also passed more SoBos. Again, we asked questions about the upcoming trail.   The trail turned even more brutal later in the afternoon. We had a very steep climb. But, again, it was through pine trees and the aroma smelled so nice. Soon, we came upon a rock garden. It was hundreds of rock cairns that have been built for a long time. We saw three people building a cairn. We chatted with them. We told them we were thru-hiking. They were amazed. They said they thought we were day hikers. We seem to get this response often. We aren't sure if it is because we are older than the "typical" thru-hiker, because we are cleaner (we wash off every night either by a stream or with baby wipes - yes - baby wipes. They work great. They are light in weight as we let them dry out and then just add water) or because everyone says our packs look small (We have everything inside our pack not hanging off our pack.   Believe us we have heavy packs!). We had a nice conversation with them and then started our way north again. We soon passed a shelter we were thinking of tenting at. But, it was .3 miles off the trail. Forget hiking .3 miles that don't count. We hiked another .5 miles passed the shelter. We crossed a little stream. And, we found a stealth tent site. We just found our home for the night. We set up camp and performed our daily chores. As we sat in our tent eating dinner, we thought we heard rain (today is day 2 without rain!). It wasn't rain. It was quaking Aspen. Oh, it sounded very nice, alot nicer than rain on our tent. We will go to sleep listening to the quaking Aspens. Yes, we are in an Aspen forest tonight.