Date: 2007-07-18
From: Campbell Mountain Shelter

To: Pickle Branch Shelter
Miles today: 17.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Today I tried to make it up to McAfee's knob by sunrise, but it just didn't happen. It's okay - I still got up there by ~7 and got to see the sun breaking through the clouds. I tried to get that famous McAfee's Knob pose but it was hard to do with just the self timer. I did get pretty lucky with one of the photos as the sun is shining on the valley, but my pose is dorky. Oh well. It is how it is on this, my hike of the AT. i sat up on the rock for about an hour watching the sun and clouds move across the sky and enjoying the cool morning air. I left the knob and went down to the Catawba Mtn Shelter looking for water, but found three sleeping hikers instead. I quietly let them be and found the water in a spring .1 miles further south. There is another shelter just a mile south and I stopped in at it too, I don't know why, I didn't need a break. In between these two shelters I saw a critter run through the bushes and up a tree. No, not a bear, a raccoon. There was ! another one with it. Now isn't it a bad thing to see a nocturnal animal in the daylight?I cross the road at 311 and forego going into Catawba and to the Homeplace Restaurant as it is closed on Wednesdays. The restaurant has the reputation as having the best AYCE food on the trail. I'll have to visit it some other time. Still moving a bit slow, I put on my headphones and the music helps me to pick up the pace. I come off the mountain and cross some pastures and am hiking along a stream in a cow pasture and see two hikers coming toward me (the only hikers I will see all day). But its a good meeting, because one of the hiker's is Gob. We had both been hoping to pass each other and today was the last day for it to happen as they are ending their hike at 311. We catch up for a bit and then head opposite directions. Wish he could have hiked more with me.It's now after lunch and the heat of the day is full on. I climb up Rawies Rest which is a knife's edge trail meaning it is exposed and ledgey. Its not bad hiking, its just hot. I descend into a gap and then begin the climb up Dragon's Tooth. Its a doozie, very similar to ME in that it is hand over foot hiking, with 2 spots having rebar to help you get up over the rocks. Again, it wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't so hot and you only were carrying a daypack. I make it to the top and enjy the view back to Tinker Cliffs and McAfees Knob. I se the sign and blue blaze and think, "What? There was an easier trail up this mountain!" I don't find out until later that the blue blaze was to the rock that is shaped like a "dragon's tooth" and a vista. Oh well. I'll cough this snaffu up to heat deliriousness. From here to the shelter is a pretty sucky four miles. The trail vegetation is overgrown and the rocks are annoying. Plus, I am hot and thirsty and running low on water.!   The shelter of course is a half mile off the trail and the water is even further and downhill. But at the water source is a family of three from Indiana. They are out for the week and I enjoy the company of dad, Andy, daughter, Sarah, and son Joey. I set up my hammock after dinner and sleep wonderfully under the stars and a quarter moon. ------------------------------