Back on the trail again with somewhat fresh legs. Today is a foggy and light rain day. By the time we get to the drop off point though , the fog is burning off, and it really looks like it is burning off. It comes up from pools of thick fog in the valley in wisps like smoke or resembles the hair on the fight promoter Don Kings head! It is warm today, 70's and will get into the 80's, actually hot for this place. The hike starts out all uphill, so I heat up pretty quick and shed my outer shirt by the top of the first hill. Lots of rocks on this part of the trail and there are numerous rock "staircases" which are easy up with the trekking poles, but more treachorus going down. They are very steep and usually cut into a rock face that does not lend itself to switchbacks or gentle slope. If you find a loose rock or slip going up, you fall forward and arrest your fall, but going down can be a tumble head over heals or a slide down granite on your fragile butsky. Lots of these have a long way down visage, so not for the faint of heart and yes if you slip your heart catches for a second with the accompaning adrenaline surge. Then you scrabble up the next hill overly quick singing do da , do da trying to blot out those pictures of face plant on a granite wall, and do I have any cell phone bars here? No 911 here.........
I pass a number of hikers today, a few we saw yesterday on our short hikes. I meet another young college age girl Ellen, not for many words, but I pry out that she is thru hiking by herself, she grunts and moves on. Maybe I should have shaved this morning, I must look like the AT mugger!
I pass a few day hikers as it is Saturday and there will be more section hikers in the Park today. I group of five older men chatting noisily pass me going in the other direction, they foolishly ask me if I have seen any bear. I laugh and tell them that I heard them coming at least 1/2 mile away, so I don't think any bear sitings will be in their near future. They laugh politely but look strangely at me, like are you part Indian?
The day gets hot and sunny and the bugs come out in force. There is no sound here but the birds and insects, some of which feast upon me through my high strength deet cologne. My hat becomes the equivelent of the horse's tail, fly swatter extrordinare.
I come upon a hiker also going in the other direction, a through hiker who's trail name is Happy. We chat, he is my age and also a retired engineer. While we chat he points out a huge black snake on a dead tree limb a few feet away. Must be a nest in the limb or some scrumcious bugs . We would never have seen that snake a few feet from our heads and the trail if we had not stopped to talk. Happy gives me some trail info about the high quality of sandwiches at the Loft Mountain Wayside and a better way of getting there before we depart. I hike anothe hour and meet Suz and Beau under a tree at the Loft Mountain stop. A good days hike, around 11 miles.
Do da and Hike'n C.A. Bear
No comments:
Post a Comment