Date: 2018-07-08
From: Campsite at mile 1303.2

To: Brink Shelter 
Miles today: 16.3
Weather: clear sky

Our neighbor, Tyler, was still snoring in his hammock as I headed out in the morning. Cole was slow moving and even though I packed up most of his things, he wanted 45 more minutes before he had to start hiking. Thirty minutes bud. You need to get moving within thirty minutes. He reluctantly agreed.We have been lacking a variety in scenery lately, but today we had some nice views as we hiked along the side of the mountain we were on. There was a bog too. They can actually be pretty despite their horrid name. Bog. I got my nose a bit out of joint today, but I was careful to bite my lip and keep my thoughts to myself. I was filling up my water bottles from a trickling stream that was coming out the side of a rock. Someone had kindly added a leaf spigot. A weekend hiker saw me and took the opportunity to school me in the need for water filtration before consumption. Ok, I know that even after 1300 miles there are many things I could still learn. For instance, when Mark was visiting, I foolishly decided to send home my quilt. It has been so hot and I have not used it and I was tired of carrying an unused item. I decided that some warm sleeping pants, my fleece and liner would suffice if it got cold at night. Well last night it got cold. Cole was under his quilt and I was shivering in my sleeping bag liner. We were sleeping head to foot and he did not have his toe box done up. That is a lot of unused quilt just lying there, I thought. I kept inching in closer and closer to his feet trying to get one measly corner of his quilt over my shoulder to steal some warmth. You might be able to guess the results. I got kicked in the head. Then he rolled over taking the extra corner of the quilt with him.So you see, there are still many things I need to learn, but the need for water treatment is not one of them.I smiled, because I also know how to use a filter on my mouth, and then politely told him that I would be using purification tablets in the water since my son currently had our filter. My nose was quite crooked during the explaination. I could feel it. Would he have said anything if I were a guy? Could he not see the bright orange tag hanging off my backpack that screams to everyone ¢I hiked here from Georgia!¢Sheila....he is just trying to help.But why? Because I am a lone female hiker so I must be dumb?Maybe I was just tired. I reached a fairly steep and long incline. I¢ll show him. I motored up that hill like a boss, putting to work my powerful leg muscles that had been honed on mountains in the southern states. But of course, weekend hiker dude never saw because I¢d smoked him long ago. Silly Sheila. Out here among other thru hikers I¢m the weakest and slowest of the bunch with no right to any kind of ego. By lunch time, nine miles down the trail, Cole had still not caught up to me. I sat on a rock by a roadside to wait. Eventually he arrived, just behind Box Turtle, a thru hiker we have been keeping pace with for a few days. We ate lunch, had a nice long rest and then continued on. A few miles up the trail we found a trail magic cooler with gatoraid, beer and fruit. Nice!We came upon a dung beatle pushing his little ball of poop northbound toward Katahdin. This time I took a video of the little guy. Cole found a few more of them just at the beginning stages of forming their balls from a pile of poop along side the trail. Smelly work!With about four miles left to go, Cole went on ahead to the shelter. My feet were really aching and I was hobbling slowly. At one point I decided that I wanted to sing to make myself feel better, so sing I did.Loud rustling in the bushes interrupted me. I could tell that it was something big. My first guess was that I had come across a hiker who was digging himself a cat hole. ( Maybe after the dung Beatles I had poop on my brain) I resumed my singing to make him aware that he was about to have company. Then I saw his outline through the trees. He was a great big black bear, twice the size of any we had seen in Shenandoah.I began yelling at him as loudly and forcefully as I could, trying hard to keep my pitch low and forceful. ¢Get out of here bear. Get a move on!¢He turned and looked at me. Then he huffed at me.¢Don¢t you huff at me! Just get out of here! Go! Go away bear!!¢He started walking away from me following along beside the trail. I kept yelling. He crossed the trail, turning to look at me again. Huff Huff.¢Don¢t give me that attitude! Just get a move on!¢One more huff, then he kept moving away from the trail and off into the distance turning only once to look back at me. I just kept yelling until he was out of sight. I was excited to tell Cole about my encounter when I arrived at the shelter. A sign on the shelter warned of an active bear in the vicinity. There were way too many mosquitoes to stay in the shelter though, so we set up the tent.I packed up the food bags after our dinner, scouring my pockets and backpack for any scented items. Cole is always supposed to do this as well. In fact, at the last trail magic there was a garbage bag and I asked him to empty out all of his garbage into it.Then we went to sleep. Sometime in the night I was awakened by the sound of footsteps outside of the tent. I bolted upright, as did Cole who had obviously heard it as well. We unzipped the fly and shone our headlamps into the darkness. Cole was certain he saw something. ¢I¢ve got garbage in my pockets.¢ He suddenly declared and proceeded to rummage madly among his things. In every pocket, corner and bag he pulled out a wide variety of wrappers and smelly objects, enough to fill a large zip lock bag. He grabbed a headlamp and took the offending objects over to the bear box. We settled in once again to go to sleep.It wasn¢t long before the footsteps returned. We shined our lights outside once again and listened to the footsteps slowly saunter away.We can¢t sleep here!We quickly shoved all of our things into our backpacks and hauled them up to the shelter. The shelter was empty and it had a nice sized covered porch. We returned for the tent and without taking it down relocated it to the porch. Cole usually likes to sleep with his head near the door so that he can get a bit of a breeze on his face. The door was facing the top of the porch stairs so he elected to face the other way.¢I don¢t think I will be able to sleep mom.¢¢I don¢t think a bear will come up the stairs hon. Just try.¢Neither of us slept well.