SNP Hile Day 6: Cheering on the Mice

Thursday, 11th of September, 2003.

Rock Spring Hut to Pass Mountain Shelter, 13 miles

I’ve had yet another night of light sleep surfing in and out of wakefulness, but I seem to be getting enough sleep to be able to go each day, so while it is annoying to feel half awake all night long, I seem to be getting the necessary rest. I get my breakfast, filter some water to have a full supply for the day, and slap on more big moleskin patches over the blisters before putting on the hiking socks for the day and heading out. I tolerate a bit more motherly advice from the New York ladies, then some scathing commentary about my GPS (apparently one of the two women had an ex-husband who was very attached to his gadgets), and I head off, once again first on the trail in the morning, so once again walking into spider webs from time to time.

About half an hour later, Rambling Ryan comes up behind me and hands me something I left behind. Thank goodness: it was my roll of toilet paper in the ziplock bag. I had given it to one of the Illinois girls when she had to visit the latrine and found no paper there and I had not put it back in my pack and didn’t notice in the morning. Thank goodness for small favours!

Rambling Ryan takes off up the path ahead of me. He is a much faster hiker than I, hiking the full trail at 20-25 miles a day. He is planning to “flip flop”: most hikers are called northbounders (or in some log enteries, “NoBos”. Suarte and Sweat coming down from Maine are the less common “SoBos”, while I’m a section hiker.) He will meet friends from D.C. in a few days north of here at Harper’s Ferry, take a few days off and visit some equipment stores in northern Virginia, then take off for Maine and hike south from Katahdin. The idea is to avoid the crowds created by SoBos and NoBos all starting around the same time if not at the same pace from their respective start points (the vernal equinox for NoBos at Springer Mountain in Georgia, a couple of months later in Maine for SoBos.) That big pulse of people coming in the same direction around the same time means there are some interesting trail traditions, like a big cookout dinner at Blackburn Trail Center every night for NoBos in late June and early July (Spending the 4th for the fireworks in Harper’s Ferry is a common goal amongst NoBos.). But there are those like Rambling Ryan who want both the woods and the shelters at night to themselves or at least to small groups.

In any case, I am please to be reunited with my toilet paper. I may have only two more nights left, but it is always good to rely on your own paper rather than that at the latrines. Ryan is trying to interest me in the idea of a big sitdown breakfast up ahead at Skyland, which I must admit has some appeal, but it is going to be a pretty full day of hiking today. The distance is only average, but not long after Skyland, I go near the peaks of Stony Man Mountain, which is the highest spot on this trail in the park, Little Stony Man, and Mary’s Rock. Then there is a good 2000 feet of elevation drop through Thorton Gap, then another mile of gradual climbing across the trail in the north district up to the Pass Mountain Shelter.




Skyland is very pretty when I get there with a wonderful view into the town of Luray in the Shenandoah Valley. I do avail myself of a cold soda from the vending machine, look for but fail to find some cheese at the store which clearly does not cater to hikers or even campers. I’m not going to get a carved bear for my pack... A quick visit to the bathroom to splash water over my face and remove a couple of hours of grim from hiking, and then it is time to head on again.

Stony Man Mountain is hard going up: my blisters are not happy with climbing as the weight is on the back of the heels. But the soda is giving me a bit more energy, so practicing taking two steps instead of one to each breath is keeping me moving up and along at a reasonable pace. I see the turnoff for the peak of Stony Man and decide to give it a miss since the view from Skyland was very similar and there is Little Stony Man and Mary’s Rock still to come for views. Coming down from the saddle point on the trail, my feet shift forward in the boots and I can just feel the ends of my toes touching the front of the boot. This is the bane of people like me with long thin feet: boots that fit still have to be laced up very tight to keep the feet from sliding forward on downhills, and boots big enough to have that much space in the front slide back and forth a lot. I take a break at Little Stony Man where there is a wonderful view again right on the trail, tighten up the boot laces again, look ahead to see Thorton Gap and Mary’s Rock in the distance, then head on again.

Just like every other day so far, the weather is very good and the skies are clear and sunny. As I come down the other side, I can see all the way out to Old Rag Mountain off the side of the main range through Shenandoah, as well as see the fire scars through the woods from the large forest fire that burned through this area three years ago. There are also a great many dead trees down on the ground from the damage done by Hurricane Floyd a few years back. I don’t know this at the time, but in another week from now, Hurricane Isabel will come through here and do yet more damage, with its winds funneled through Thorton Gap in particular. I’m amongst the last to see it before the storm, though of course I have no idea of this at the time.

The hike continues well and that feet sliding forward sensation is not bothering me as much as I come down from Little Stony Man, so I think I have it covered. One nice thing about downhill is that the weight is off the blisters. One bad thing is that it takes a lot of energy and concentration and effort to hike down gracefully with the 30-35 pounds of stuff on my back and me pretty well worn from a good morning of hiking. I take a pleasant break at the Byrd’s Nest Day Shelter for some more dried fruit and water, and then take on Mary’s Rock.

The climb up is not much to write about, though the occasional views through the trees are nice. There’s a small offshot trail to go up to the top and see all around in all directions, but I’ve got the shelter on my mind and have enjoyed the views from other spots already, so keep going. Besides, there is a store at Panaroma at the bottom that it would be nice to reach and get a block of cheese or something like that for Friday’s lunch now that my hummus has run out and I still have a single “loaf” of pita bread for tomorrow.

It is a long way down. A long long long way down. My legs are very very tired by this point and there is again that slight touching sensation of toes hitting the ends of the boots. I stop and lace up harder again, but forcing the blisters into the backs of the heels of the boots for a snugger fit is no kindness and only does so much good. I soldier on, reminding myself that my boots and gear are in far better shape than anything that soldiers wore through this area during the Civil War, Union or Confederate, and they did marches of 20 miles a day for days at a time on occasion. In wool uniforms. In the middle of summer, not a pleasant fall day like the ones I have been blessed with all week long. My respect for the level of effort in this has climbed a great deal during this week.

But that does not mean I am not very very pleased to have the torture of my toes and heels end when I get to Panaroma. There is a brief scarey moment when I realize the parking lot looks completely abandoned. Maybe the store has been closed just like the restaurant? But I am in luck and it is open. I get a nice cold orange juice and a block of cheese that goes in the pack for later, take an unusually long break sitting and doing nothing before taking up the burden again. It’s mid-afternoon and my feet are very unhappy, but there is just a mile more to go. And only a few hundred feet to go before finishing off another trail milestone and passing from the Central to the North district of the park, and thus onto the third map. It took me a full year last year day hiking to go through two maps from Harper’s Ferry to the north end of the park and I’ve done the same in just five days.

But I still have that last mile to go, so back goes the pack and I head on out across U.S. 211 where it goes through the gap and back up onto the slope of Pass Mountain. The woods here are a mix of trees like sassafras and oak, but shift towards pines as I get near the shelter. When I get to the shelter, there are a couple of people there. One is a SoBo whose name I didn’t catch. He asks me if I have seen a couple of people whom he describes, which matches some guys I saw on the trail a day or so ago. Apparently these are some of his hiking partners and he fell back a while ago to give his feet a rest and now is chasing to catch up with them. He is thinking he can reach Rock Spring Shelter for the night. I laugh: I’ve just spent seven or eight hours getting here from there and he wants to do this in the three or four hours of daylight he has left? With the climb up Mary’s Rock to start with? And with backcountry camping not permitted on Stony Man Mountain? But he is determined. So after heating up a dinner on a alcohol stove he made for himself (essentially a crushed beer can filled with ethanol, and a larger can with holes in the side and open top and bottom to hold the pan over over it: it is light and simple, though it tends to build up some black soot that needs to be cleaned off), he heads off. The other person is the shelter caretaker, a guy whose real name I am told, but forget, but whose trail name is Skyline. He is a nice and likeable fellow who chats for a while before taking care of some maintenance work.

Skyline warns me to use one of the bear poles in the woods at the campground site off to the side. Apparently there is a tree starting to grow limbs close enough to the bear pole that the raccoons and chipmunks have learned to run up the tree and jump onto the pole and raid the food from here. I comment that it seems like the bear poles have little to do with bears and a great deal to do with chipmunks and mice. Skyline laughs at this, but points out that they have had bears getting into the huts at night when people have neglected to use the bear poles. Just a few months before, one bear got into Pinefield Hut in the night and scared the heck out of the hikers inside while he helped himself to the food bag someone had hanging from a hook inside, thinking that was enough to keep it free of mice. Skyline mentions that he keeps having to take down the lines people put in the shelters with tuna cans on the line to stop the mice: other hikers see them and use them instead of the bear poles.

I scout out the poles and find the one which Skyline was recommending that I use. Apparently there are a lot of limitations in the park about managing the environment. While it is okay to mow the grass around the hut, taking a saw to a tree limb is not okay. And so the chipmunks that work it out get to feast on unnatural foods. It’s an odd way to manage things.

Despite my fears, and the presence of the emergency stove I got at Loft Mountain earlier this week, my antique hiker stove lights up just fine tonight and I have the one of the last of the Instant India dinners. I have one for tomorrow night and then the pasta bean Italian soup thing for Tom Floyd Shelter just outside the park for dinner Saturday night when Meredith hikes out with me. Mind you, looking at the backs of my feet, I am wondering if I should be whimping out and asking Meredith to just take me home Saturday morning. But after a good meal and rest, and finding the shelter to myself after Skyline heads for home and the thru hiker continues on his southward chase of his friends, I figure I’ll see how things are tomorrow. I’ve come a long way and it seems a pity to back out at the last minute so close to finishing the entire hike. I remind myself of Tuesday night at Pocosin Cabin, when I was ready to give up when I first got there, and ready to continue taking on the trail the next morning. A good long night of sleep and some rest and healing for my feet just might work wonders...

I settle down for the night after it gets dark and snuggle up in my sleeping bag. I’m just about to go to sleep when there is some noise outside and it gets louder and louder and then there is a blue light from one of the LED headlamps some hikers use. I don’t have the shelter to myself after all.

I don’t catch the name of the SoBo who just rolled in, but very early in the conversation I mention the advice from Skyline to put his foodbag on the bearpole in the woods, not the one just across the way. I hit a raw nerve or something as I get a lecture about how “I’ve hiked 4500 miles (apparently this guy has done the AT a couple of times, though not all of it in either of those hikes) and I never used no bear pole, no bear box, no bear line, and no bear never got me...” blah blah blah. He continues on this diatribe for a good few minutes and I get pretty damn irritated, though in my usual sit there silently and smoulder fashion. My older sister calls this state of my emotions “the black hole.” Of course it is dark and the stranger cannot see how mad I am and I’m not going to say anything since there is no point when he is refusing to listen. I just hope the bear from Pinefield Hut hasn’t been teaching his compatriots, but if that bear comes in, I do hope this damn fool has a Snicker’s bar in his sleeping bag with me so the bear gives him the full attention and not me.

Lest you think I am joking about bears teaching each other tricks, I should share a story from one of the rangers. Some years ago, there was a bear up near Big Meadows that learned she could mock charge day trippers. Since they don’t know bear behavior well enough to recognize the difference between a real attack and a mock charge, they (somewhat sensibly) run off, dropping their day packs as a distraction. The bear then helps herself to the contents of the pack. The park service was somewhat concerned, but not enough to do anything about it until she had cubs and they caught her at teaching them the same trick. After all, it is an easy high calorie payoff, low energy expended way to get a meal. Almost as good as finding a bird feeder. So the park service caught her and relocated her to another part of the park.

And a few months later, they get reports of several different bears in the South District where they released her now doing the mock charging trick. Park rangers tell the story to demonstrate that relocating bears as a way to solve problems with bears that learn to check out the humans at the campgrounds in the Central District can make the problem worse, not better. But it is an interesting experiment in bear re-education too...

Anyway, I am filled with angry thoughts at this damn fool. I start to doze off to sleep, but surf in and out of wakefulness through the night. I hear the guy make his dinner on the stove, finish up, set his bag on the floor in the shelter, and settle down for the night. Much later, I hear some scrambling around. It’s the first time I have actually heard mice in the night in the shelter and I presume it is because this damn fool has a pack with food and salty pack straps in the shelter. I’m away from the side of the shelter which they tend to run around for safety, and my stuff is all safely up the pole. So I sing a silent cheer to the mice and hope they chew all the way through this jerk’s packstraps in the night in their pursuit of salt. And with that happy thought, I doze back towards sleepfulness.

Tune in tomorrow for a Cheeseburger in Paradise and the glory of sitting in the woods dry while it rains outside.

J aka “Red Sock”