Date: 2012-02-23
To: Day 6: Final Shakedown Hike in September 2011
Miles today: 0.0

[Day 6 of our 2011 preparation hike: September 26th ¢ A Day of Bear Sightings, or X's Plum-Sassy Report¢¦] Doing our final Shakedown Hike (SDH) was such a good idea for many reasons and we learned many things. For example, I knew intuitively a lot of the shelters are nestled down snuggly in the gaps of ridges & mountains to be close to water sources. But it really hit home on this trip what that means: whether you¢re a SOBO¢er or NOBO¢er, when you leave camp in the morning, the first thing you¢re going to do is¢¦ hike uphill! With the rain coming more-or-less steadily down when we arrived in camp late the afternoon before, we nixed the idea of setting up our tent, decided to bunk with the mice & a resident BWS (Black Widow Spider), and stayed inside the Plumorchard Shelter. [The shelter is an interesting structure itself, since it was assembled offsite and flown to its current location by a large U.S. Army helicopter AND it¢s 3-stories tall! There¢s a nice interpretive exhibit mounted on the inside wall explaining its history.] It rained off and on all night, but the next morning, along with all our gear, we awoke nice and dry, thankful for the army and its helicopters¢¦ After breakfast we set off ¢¦ uphill. After a steady mile-long 550¢climb we stopped at the top of Buzzard Knob, gathered our collective breaths, took a nice long swallow of water, and surveyed the surrounding forest. The rain had stopped and while things were drippy, our spirits were high. Enjoying a long break before setting off again, we took out a few pages from The A.T. Guide to see where we were and where we were going. Then, just as we were taking our first step, we were stopped dead in our tracks by a loud crashing sound very close to where we were standing. It was our first bear sighting! Unseen by us, the bear had been up in a tree, taking us in for the entire rest-stop, while we had not a clue of his presence. For some reason he decided he¢d seen enough and came down as we were leaving our spot. I guess it never occurred to me before right then how a bear might come down a tree, but now I know: hinny first, paw-over-paw, down the trunk, and when they want to, very fast! We must have scared this little guy out of his mind, because he was not coming down ¢politely¢, as our friend Debbie Meredith would say. He was coming down in a way that can only be described as ¢haulin¢ butt¢. Crash! Bang! Boom! Branches, limbs, vines, bark, stuff-flying-everywhere fast! And then he hit the ground running. Picture all of this happening in far less time than it took you to read this. When it was all over we could only look at each other, mouths agape, saying, ¢Wwooww!¢ There was absolutely no time to even grab the camera. As it turned out, this would be the first of three bear sightings during our SDH, with all the bears starting out in trees. By all reports, last year was a very tough year on the bears in this part of the world. The summer was hot and dry, and the wild berry crops were lean, and low-growing edibles were few and far between. Bears were climbing trees to forage for small Muscadine or fox grapes. Bears were pawing in-ground yellow jacket nests along the trail. Bears were reportedly stealing dog food from porches and raiding dumps in Franklin, N.C. All in all, it was a tough way to get a meal.After the bear sighting, the day became rather routine. We hiked in and out of Dicks Creek Gap (a very dry Dicks Creek, at that), then in and out of another Deep Gap (isn¢t this where we started???) for a total of about eleven miles, until we found a lovely spot to set up our tent at Sassafras Gap. N reported the water source located down the hill was hardly a good sized mud puddle. He dug out a hole, then later made a second trip down to pump what little bit had accumulated. The hot, dry summer made certain water sources problematic for us humans, too. Perhaps the day¢s highlight was the light rain shower after dinner. A very warm dry drizzle allowed us to take full advantage of a way to ¢shower¢ and get the dust of the trail off both ourselves and our clothes. Thanks to Dr. Bonner and his soap, clean us, clean clothes¢¦we slept like babes in the woods that night. This spot is so memorable we have every intention of camping here again during our thru-hike¢¦ -X