Date: 2014-04-30
From: Gooch Mountain Shelter

To: Lance Creek
Miles today: 8.5
Weather: moderate rain

Day 3: Gooch to Lance CreekAbout Last Night: there was a rodent problem at Gooch Shelter. It sounded like a small army was on the move or better yet, like I was in a construction zone. I woke up to the sound of scratching, or maybe chewing, I couldn't tell. I was sleeping nearest one wall of the shelter with my backpack and those of Sweet and Sours hanging on the wall above me. The noise was coming from there. I¢m not afraid of mice, but I¢m no friend of them either. They carry disease and that¢s enough to make me uneasy in close proximity. Plus I did have a mouse crawl over my head while I was sleeping once, I still have a small phobia about that which is why I sleep in a hat or bandanna now. So ok, noise¢¦ I flash my headlamp and catch the beady little eyes, he (or she) is on top of Sweets bag, I figured the light would send him scampering away, but he¢s a brazen little thing. I unzip the bag and get up and shoo him back to the rafters where he takes off on the mouse-super highway for "parts unknown". In fact, now that I think of it, Anthony Bourdain is a perfect name for this adventurous mouse, I¢ll call him Tony for short. So I get back in my bag and all is quiet overhead for about 10 minutes. Then ¢scratch, scratch, scratch¢, light goes on, Tony is back in the area and again, I need to get up to get him to run away. "Crap, this is going to suck if I¢m up every 10 minutes." I didn't see any holes or anything while I was up looking at the bags, so I decide to just block out the noise and try to get some sleep. I guess it worked for a little while, but maybe an hour later I¢m waking up again. Now I¢m pretty aggravated with Tony. I look at the Sweets pack, I don¢t see him then I go to mine to check it out, again, no holes but in the outer right mesh pocket, I see a frigging mouse, just hanging out like it¢s his personal hammock! WTF! Ok, I was too tired to scream so I flicked his butt with my finger and Tony takes off. I¢m thoroughly grossed out now that a mouse was in my bag (even if it was on the outside of the bag). I fall asleep in disgust. In the Full Light of Day: Sweet and Sour are getting up, and I am too. I remember all the racket from last night and as Sweet goes to grab her pack off the wall, she exclaims that there is a small hole in the top of her pack- I guess Tony had been there all night working on it. Poor Sweet! I jostled my bag a bit to ensure any potential residents were warned to leave. No mice. I looked into the mesh pocket where Tony had been hanging out a few hours earlier and find 4 legs and the dismembered shell of an insect body and a partially eaten almond. Mmmmm, fine dining indeed, Tony! Ugh¢¦ after washing my hands several times with alcohol, and saying a prayer that Hantavirus was not in my future, I packed up and left the shelter- so happy to know that Tony was not catching a ride in my pack and grateful that he didn't actually go inside the pack!AND NOW:Argh, more rain today. I am in my tent at the moment, fortunately I had a bit of a pause in the rain during which I set up, but everything is damp. The wind occasionally picks up making it all that much colder here at Lance Creek even though I am bundled in my sleeping bag. I've been reflecting, with a bit of annoyance, on the crummy weather that seems to be following me since south of Black Gap shelter. There have been some bright spots in the day, but very few and I've missed a lot of views along the way. Ok, my griping is done. There are a number of things for which I am thankful: 1) it¢s only rain, not snow. So many times I am walking on a narrow strip of trail- perhaps just wide enough to hold my boots, side-by-side. At these times, I always marvel at the north-bounders who traverse this section when it¢s covered with snow! How do people stay on so narrow a trail, one they can¢t even see? What a leap of faith that must be to take those steps! 2) the people you meet. Yep this is a recurring theme every section, every year and no matter how ugly a day is, surrounded by trail family really does cheer things up. I've met some fun folks on this trip and that has made the dreary days much livelier. 3) I¢m still out here, and on the top side of the dirt, breathing air that smells like rain, or flowers, or pine, air that doesn't have a ¢color¢ to it, drinking water that comes off mountainsides instead of the highly chlorinated, terrible tasting stuff at home. 4) Finally, I am on my feet instead of on my ass!!! All of these things are real gifts! So, do I wish I would "SEE" Georgia, yep, sure do, but I don¢t regret the hike at all! I did get a few very nice views off Preachers Rock today, which was a nice change of pace!Today I walked over a lot of small bumps shown on the map profile, the climb of the day was at Big Cedar Mountain, after lunch but even that 600¢ climb was not difficult. I made reasonable time in the morning it was misty and occasionally rainy again. I stopped at Woody Gap for lunch where a few hikers were already hanging around. Woody Gap is a parking area off GA 60, it has picnic tables, trash cans and pit toilets so nearly everything a hiker would call luxury accommodations (some water would make it 4-star). While the temps were still cool, and the occasional gust of wind made it cold, it was dry and a nice place to relax, and being able to eat at a table is a nice change of pace. I only had about 2.5 miles to go for the day. I think I got to Lance Creek around 3:00, the rain started about 15 minutes before I arrived so I grumbled for 15 minutes. I arrived to find Michael who decided not to push to Neel Gap which is the location of the Mtn Crossings outfitter and hostel. He had set up before the rain and could enjoy a nap in a dry tent now. Meanwhile I decided that since Matt indicated that the rain was supposed to stop by late afternoon, I would delay setting up my tent until there was a break in the weather. Instead I started to look for a bear-bagging tree. For anyone who has not read my prior year journals, I will just say that bear bagging is a form of trail entertainment that starts with locating a tree that meets (or doesn't meet, when you are tired) the suggested requirements: ¢a tree with a branch at least 16 feet from the ground which extends at least 6 feet from the trunk of the tree or any other branch a bear could shimmy out on to get to your bag¢. In the end the bear bag should hang down about 6 ft from the branch and out 6 ft from the trunk with 10¢ from the bag to the ground. Once you find a tree, you need to launch your paracord/rope over the selected branch using a tied-off rock or a weighted toss bag to carry the line over the branch when you start throwing. You¢d think in a forest, there would be PLENTY of available trees. Let me disabuse you of this notion! Some trees don¢t have branches that are low enough or far enough from the trunk, others don¢t have branches that are strong enough to hold a food bag but not strong enough to hold a bear, many are too close to other trees/branches to get a clean toss of the rope over your branch and finally, given the terrain, trees may be angled oddly and therefore difficult to get to. The area around Lance Creek had one or two trees which looked promising but had a narrow opening in which to launch an assault on the branch. My toss bag is my Petzl headlamp case. I put a few rocks into the case and clip it to my paracord and swing the case like a horizontal helicopter-blade in a forward motion before letting go of it at the top of the arc, theoretically upon release, it should sail above the branch and have sufficient weight to drop gracefully over "said branch" and down to the ground. Once that happens, everything else is cake, you simply clip the bag to the carabineer on the end of the rope where the toss bag was, and hoist your bag to bear-free safety. THAT is how it is supposed to work¢¦ Today, I started with the clearer of the two trees I identified and tried a good half-dozen tosses two of which went wildly out of control and others fell just short of the branch. One time I launched the toss bag and it caught on a smaller branch just below my target. I tugged at the line once¢¦nothing; a second tug, a little harder, still nothing. The third time, I yanked it really hard and felt the line go slack immediately, I swear I heard a whistling noise as the rock-filled bag came flying back at me with a vengeance and striking me squarely on the forehead- OUCH! Thankfully, Michael was asleep in his tent and no one but the trees were witness to this folly. After clocking myself, I realized the rain had stopped and I should take a break from the bear-bagging chore to set up my tentAlthough the rain had stopped, it was still gusty and pretty chilly. After getting the tent set up, I got inside and tried to warm up¢¦ this brings me to where I am now. Shivering in my bag, in my tent, there¢s no way this sleeping bag is rated to 30*. Time marches on, and since I started writing this entry, I heard Sweet and Sour arrive. They've set-up on the tent pad next to me. I hear them saying the same thing I did when I arrived- the tent pads are not all that flat which pretty much guarantees a night of rolling downhill until you hit the low side of your tent and then trying to inch your way back up while zipped into your sleeping bag. Just a moment ago I heard more voices, it¢s Heather and Jeff. I called out hello through the tent wall and now I¢m trying to decide what to do. I am cold, it is still windy out and I hear the occasional rain drops on my tent but I've got to pee. Leaving now guarantees I will get colder¢¦grrrr. Well¢¦ making the move outside¢¦Meanwhile, later this evening¢¦What a fun night! There were a number of people who tented at Lance Creek this evening: Sweet and Sour, Michael, Heather and Jeff, two gals from TX that are doing 20+ mile days already, and I think a guy being called Sourpatch and his friends. Turns out if you walk a little beyond what I thought was the last tent pad, there are more areas to camp. I found this out when I was "checking the wood-line"; thankfully I was a good distance away from being seen. So tonight, well the rain kind of came and went. I made dinner and shared a very wet fallen tree with Sour where we ate dinner. Then I ambled over to Jeff and Heather¢s hooch. They had a nice set up going, they¢d strung a tarp overhead to keep the drizzle off and a ground cloth on which to sit and were setting up their fine dining experience. Over the course the next couple of hours, I got to better know my camp-mates. Heather and Jeff are from GA and have been in the airline industry. It turns out it might have been Jeff that I was cussing out (under my breath of course) one of the many times my flights between Atlanta and Augusta were delayed. Like me, they¢re section hikers. Jeff was sharing a recent revelation that if they continued to hike at the same distance/duration until they finished the AT, it would take 70+ years! Well they got my 20-year plan beat! LOL, I guess they¢re going to have to revisit that idea! I figure once the kids are a little bigger, they might enjoy those hikes too and longer trips might be possible . Another thing about these two is that they hike in ¢luxury, luxury¢. There are two extremes in the hiking community: the comfortable and the ascetic-hiker. Hiking is hard, it can be without creature comforts for many hikers, and as Saturday Night Live's VP Biden put it: "just a sad, hard-scrabble¢ life. This is especially true for ultralight hikers, some of whom take ultralight to zealot-like ends. For the record, I am NOT an ultralight hiker. I¢ll keep my tent, my cooked food, and my sleeping pad, thank you. I've sat in on a few ultralight-zealot conversations, competitions between minimalists. It¢s a bit like the video from Monty Python.Getting back to Heather and Jeff¢s luxury hiking adventure (p.s. Heather, I am teasing :p ). They have a hiking oven! Tonight as they were setting up, they announced that they would be making cheesy-garlic biscuits for everyone at Lance Creek. How cool is that? Trail Magic from hikers while they¢re hiking¢¦ there¢s a special place in heaven for these two! I wish I had a photo of the set-up tonight, the biscuits were awesome, there was lots of laughter in camp tonight and Heather received her trailname: 3-bars! You might think this has something to do with a campsite pub-crawl, but it was an exclamation made: ¢I've got three bars¢, as she was trying to reach her kids by phone. The weather has been uncooperative the last few days, but again- good company makes a lot of things better. Thanks for the biscuits 3-Bar and Jeff!Day 3 Scenes from the TrailSigning off with a belly full of good food and a light heart from at Lance Creek. Tomorrow I¢ll climb Blood Mtn (1000¢+ climb)and arrive at Neel Gap, the second location hikers quit the trail, I¢m not quitting. More photos for day 3 of the trip can be seen at: 2014 2000Miler