Postcards from the Trail

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Location: Alive, thankfully, at Rock Spring Hut
6/29/04
Today’s Miles: 23.9

If I wasn’t wide-awake by the time I hit the trail this morning; what happened in the first hour would correct that.

Today would offer me easy town food twice, thanks to my planned distance, so my stride had a bounce and I was moving swiftly.  After all, breakfast was just eleven miles up the trail at a camp store.

For some time now, I’ve started just carrying my hiking poles snapped together in one hand on gentle terrain.  I move a bit quieter, and my stride seems a bit longer.  Well, as I approached a particular trailside tree, a huge commotion came from above me and about twenty feet to my front. It seems a black bear had sought a high perch on that tree as I approached, but as I neared, it panicked.  Apparently, it decided I was too scary and it wasn’t high enough. Its action was to execute an emergency fire-pole slide drill down the tree with no regard to all the noise it would make – and noise it most assuredly did make.  This tree slide started with me only twenty feet away.  Naturally I looked up quickly and when comprehension finally spoke to my scaredy-cat genes within me, I jumped back saying the only calculating, dignified phrase that came to mind: holy sh t!  I immediately raised my hiking poles to prepare for the charge that was seconds away.  The bear was the size of a large elephant with giant, flesh-ripping, foot-long claws.  It had fire in its eyes and smoke venting from its nostrils.  To my amazement, this vicious beast upon touching ground hauled butt away from me – Yea, away from me. As it powered through the trees and thicket giving my dilated pupils a nice look at its quickly disappearing rear end, I then realized it wasn’t as big as an elephant, nor did it appear to have the foot-long, flesh-ripping claws like that of a T-Rex as I first thought.  It was just a young adult about the size of Winnie the Pooh, which I had scared the honey out of; and it, in turn, scared the Gatorade out of me.

I regained most of my composure but continued to yell “Hey bear” as a reflex for the next six hours, which was sort of inappropriate since one of those times was inside the camp store.  One never knows what may be lurking on the other side of the cookie shelf.  After breakfast, I hiked north another eight miles to the Big Meadows lodge where I went to the taproom for chili-and-pepperoni pizza – two of them! And a beer (or two).  The Shenandoah hiking sure is tough, isn’t it?  I counted that meal as dinner and then moved on to this hut for a strong twenty-four-mile day.  I also saw my second doe and fawn together in the trail—they let me move right up on to them, very relaxed they were.  It’s been another great day of animal spotting.

The night is clear and without cloud cover, the temperature is dropping.  It’s going to be another brisk night.  This is summer, right?