I got up to pee in the night and was immediately covered by flashlights. There had been activity around the bear pole so people camping were a little on edge. It wasn’t a bear, though. A raccoon had climbed the pole, unfastened a bag to drop it to the ground, and then slid down the pole like a fireman. Spenders saw the whole thing. He woke the guy whose food bag was taken and gave him a stick. He threw it at the raccoon. The raccoon stopped, looked at the guy with an “is that all you got?” look, flipped him off, picked up the food bag like a purse, and ran off. They eventually got the bag back because the raccoon couldn’t figure out the Velcro…this time. Next time he’ll be ready.
The bear was not a bother at all. So far, mice have been the biggest nuisance now followed by thieving raccoons. So what do bears eat? The one hanging around the hut was eating plants when he got scared off, but we discovered that he had other plans.
When we got up at 6 to hit the trail, we heard a baby crying in the woods. I thought there must be a family with a toddler until I remembered we were too far in the backcountry for a family (other than the Crawford’s). A ridge runner saw the whole thing. The bear had stayed circling the hut all night. When we got up, he found what he had been searching for, the fawn of the deer circling the hut. The bear had grabbed the fawn in its mouth and climbed a tree. He shook it in his mouth to kill it—that was the crying we had heard. When he saw the ridge runner watching him, he climbed back down and ran off, afraid that he might have to share.
We had thought about trying to get two meals in restaurants yesterday, but Chad the Dad and Shay convinced us to stay here for the night and go to Skyland for the breakfast buffet. That’s why we were up so early, so we could get there in time to have an hour of grazing on the buffet before it closed at 10. It was a foggy walk, but, once again, we were food driven.
It was foggy walking most of the way. If we came by an overlook, it was still worth the side trip out because the fog sometimes manifested itself as a wall. That’s how we saw some climbers on Hawksbill Mountain repelling down in the clear with fog covering the horizon to the west.
We got seated at 9:15 and I was worried because service was a little slow. I asked a passing waitress what time the buffet closed and she told us last seating was at 10:30 and they kept it going for at least 1/2 hour after that. We had plenty of time, so I relaxed. In any gambling situation, the majority of the time, the house wins. Although, in some cases it does lose. Today, the house lost big. When I went back for my third plate of food, the gravy was out. I just stood there eating bacon until fresh gravy was brought out. After a couple of pounds of bacon, there still wasn’t gravy. The waitress finally told me I could sit down and they’d let me know when it was ready. I took one more plate of bacon and sat down.
Hiking is great for making it possible to beat the house on buffets yet still keep heart disease and obesity at bay. I haven’t lost as much as I was hoping to on this hike, but I have lost over 25# and get to eat anything I want. The hardest part about long distance hiking is turning off the appetite when the hike is over. We didn’t succeed at that last year.
We ran into Charlie and Annie in the parking lot after we left Skyland. They were a mother and son out for their first backpacking trip. They’ve got the bug. They saw us and asked if we were hiking the AT. They walked with us a bit so they could say they had hiked on the most revered of trails, but Charlie wants to hike the entire trail next year. Annie says she does as well but considers work and responsibility ahead of hiking. Not everyone’s priorities are straight.
We stopped to check out Byrds Nest #3 Hut. That’s where we ran into Maureen and Mecatte. Mecatte is a new ranger at Acadia NP. Maureen works for the forest service in CO. The bottom line is we would love to have either one of their jobs IF we are forced to return to work. (So far, we have exceeded our budget every month (but one) in the year and a half we have been hiking. I have a hard time reminding Bunny we don’t have incomes while we are doing this.)
Leapfrog with Spenders and Murdock was the game for the afternoon. We tried breaking the cycle when we got to the Pinnacles Picnic Ground. With it being Memorial Day, we thought there would be tremendous numbers of families with extra food willing to exchange it for exciting trail stories from smelly hikers. Wrong! We gave up yogiing and headed on to Mary’s Rock.
On the way up to Mary’s Rock, we caught up with Spenders and Murdock again. Spenders told us to take a look under a rock he had just passed. It’s always suspicious when someone tells you to look under a rock unless it’s Easter Sunday. Today was Memorial Day, so we were expecting a snake. What we saw was a bird’s nest full of eggs with mamma chirping madly in our ears until we left.
Mary’s Rock held the best views we have had since McAfee Knob. There was a break in the ridge to our left and clouds were spilling through the gap like an ocean wave. I sat and talked with Spenders about dog training for about 20 minutes. He is on par with Crossfit Clay for training dogs. Clay makes nice money training hunting dogs while Spenders make nice money training more specialized dogs as grounds dogs or as needed. Murdock is 10 1/2 years old and is an amazing little dog.
All smooth and straight after Big Meadows! Should I be mad at Bear Foot or Geo? I don’t know which one was actually yanking my chain on this one. The hike down Mary’s Rock took forever. I’m pretty sure this section could easily be transported to northern PA and feel right at home. It was raining, again, before we made it to the bottom.
We arrived at Pass Mountain Hut and only Hangman was there. There were lots of people camping around the area, including Chad the Dad and Shay. We decided to stay in shelter. Just after dark, a sobo couple arrived. They were the loudest people we have run into since hiking with Koreans on the Camino last year. Everything they carried was in plastic bags—pretty wise. The problem was they didn’t mark or color code the bags in any way so if they were looking for something, they had to rattle every bag to find what they wanted. By the time they went through everything, they usually forgot what they had been looking for and started all over again. I took Benadryl, but that wasn’t enough.
EFG