Date: 2008-10-11
From: North Forks River

To: Brown Mtn Creek Footbridge
Miles today: 0.0

We passed 2 section hikers going north, perhaps the same ones yelling from distance mountains yesterday. We peaked a mountain with a nice grassy top and stopped for a snack. Chevy laughed as I pulled another apple from deep in my pack, "how many of those did you take?" I tossed him an apple and just smiled. After some snacks we decided to hitch to town at the next road. Coming off the mountain chevy pointed off to the distance and took off running. I spotted the swing hanging from a large oak he was headed towards. Who doesn't love to swing every now and than..so with the child in us satisfied we headed up cold mountain. A man coming down asked us if we had seen a patagonia fleece on trail today or yesterday. It was the same fleece I had picked up last night on a fence post, and said to chevy "I'll have to wash it first." (pointing out all the white hairs in the hood) The man requesting the hoody had a full head of white hair and I promptly pulled the fleece out of my pack and handed it to him. He thanked us and headed down the trail we heard a "yippy, yahoo" as he disappeared from our sight. Someone had mowed the top of cold mountain and there was a huge field. I wished I was carrying a frisbee and vowed to get one shipped or buy one next town. We could see the priest looming in the distant haze, its great to see where you've come from or guess where you are headed. On the way down we passed a section hiker we named lop-sided joe. He had a huge pack and was nearly crawling up the mountain the odd thing was his pack was leaning so far to one side and he leaning so far to the other that made the sight ridiculous. 50 feet later we met the culprit to lop-sided Joes problem, a large tree had fallen across the trail leaving enough room for him to get through but not him and his expedition size pack.We hitched the road for a good 30 minutes before a car pulled up across from our position. He sat there for a few minutes inspecting us we presume before he pulled up behind us. He got out of his car and looked us up and down before chevy broke the silence and asked if he was going into town. "Nope not going that far but I could get ya half way." He was a plump man with several antennas on top his car. We told him we were hiking the AT and he informed us he knows what we're going through cause he does search and rescue. I couldn't picture him going up what we just came down and shrugged it off and thanked him for the ride, half way. 2 hunters returning for a few nights at their camp gave us a ride in the back of their pickup. It appeared they only managed to kill Busch light this weekend. We resupplied at a dollar store and a nice man gave us a ride back to the trail in his truck. He informed me the number of hikers has been declining in the past few years.Back on trail we passed a fully loaded shelter with tents all around so we pushed on. We saw a great camp next to the water and I gathered fire wood as Chevy rebuilt the fireplace. I through some branches down and my skin started crawling I began to itch all over. Chevy came jumping across the stream shouting bees and was stung twice as we returned to our backpacks and took off running. We found a flat spot near a bridge, we pitched tent and ate dollar store hot dogs.