September 22 2013
Miles: 26.4
Total: 1320.9
Bear count: 6
We really did it - we got up at 5am. And you know what? Not that much different from waking up at 6am. It is dark either way! I guess we did need to use or headlamps for about an hour while hiking.
We made some good mileage early on and found ourselves at a camp store by 8:30. A luck would have it they opened earlier than the other stores in the park! We proceeded to spoil ourselves with some much needed junk food, continued to charge or electronics, and Jamie even managed to wash his shirt (hot water, again, a beautiful thing)!
We trucked along till lunch time, taking to us at just our halfway point for the day. By this point Shannon was feeling sleepy, so she took a much needed nap while Jamie took advantage of the cell signal to update the blog.
After lunch we entered a zone of extra bear activity, and sure enough we saw a momma bear and two cubs on Skyland drive as we were crossing. Someone driving to fast scared them off. Later on though we came to another teenage bear right in the middle of the path. It was pretty windy at the time so he didn't hear us coming for a few moments and he took of as soon as he looked up.
Speaking of, you may be wondering what we do with our food at night, especially in the land of bears! Well, if we are camping, we throw a rope up into a tree branch. In shelters there are three different possibilities. If there isn't a high chance of near activity, most folks just hang the food inside on a little cord; there will be a can above on the cord to prevent the much more common problem of mice. In a place like the Shenandoahs however, bears are protected and therefore abundant. Stupid people also may feed them, making them associate people with food. No good. So there may be a bear pole at a place like this -a fifteen foot high metal pole with little "u"s on the top. There is a second pole that you can remove (and for some reason they are made out of like cast iron, what's the deal?) to hang up your food on the top. The other option a shelter may have is the bear box. These are big metal boxes that humans can get into but bears can't (most people are smarter than bears, but not the folks who go around feeding them). We included some pictures in here for your perusal.
Well, tomorrow I'd another early wake up as we are bounds for town! We are only planning on 12 miles, which will be nice after these big days we have been pulling. Oh, tonight we have a shelter to ourselves. First time since Connecticut!
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