Some bird called a whiperwill kept us up all night with its incessant call. In talking to a few of the other hikers in the morning, we weren’t the only ones annoyed by the non stop noise.
In any case, we were on the trail by a bit after 7:30. Immediately when we got on the trail, there was a mama deer and fawn, right in the trail. Mama deer walked off, but baby deer just stood in the middle of the trail staring at us. It finally just kind of stepped off to the side of the trail to let us pass, but didn’t try to run away or anything.
Our first goal of the day was to make it to the loft mountain camp store, which was about 8 miles into our day. We arrived a little after 10:30, and were pleasantly surprised to find a fairly modern, very clean camp store with really nice, clean bathrooms. We grabbed a couple of sodas and a bag of salt and vinegar chips, and sat out on the steps to enjoy our calories. We chatted a bit with another thru-hiker, Obi-Wan, about the weather. There was a chance of showers for most of the day, so we wanted to at least get to the next shelter to hopefully wait out any weather. As it turned out, it never rained… in fact the sun eventually came back out late in the afternoon.
We competed the day by doing about 21.5 miles to Hightop Hut. The trail was mostly easy all day with the steepest climbs coming at the end of the day. Just about a quarter mile from the shelter, I was coming around a corner, when just up the trail about 50 or 60 yards was a big black bear sitting there. I clicked my poles together and he lifted his head, saw me, and then ran off into the woods… which is exactly what they’re supposed to do. It turns out there are quite a few bears in the area we’re camped in tonight, as we had two more sightings (more than likely the same bear) in the woods around camp. Again though, both of those acted like a bear should when encountering people, so we’re not too worried.
We’ve got another 20+ mile day planned for tomorrow, but this one should end near a wayside where we can get some of the famous blackberry ice cream… and more than likely some beer.
Beautiful little fawn.