Day 131: The Priest Shelter

Start: Rock Point (AT mi 848.7) Stop: The Priest Shelter (AT mi 829.7). Today’s miles: 19 miles. Total AT mileage: 1363.4 miles

Dear God-What. A. DAY. Whew.. now that thats out of the way-I’ll start from the beginning.
I got up sometime just after 7. I hate that I’m back in my “refuse to wake up” mode-I had mostly kicked that habit in Maine.. anyway, I sleepily got up and slowly got moving, and then was packed, breakfast eaten, and ready to go by 8am exactly. I headed off down trail, keeping my eyes peeled for the water source, since I only had a swallow left. I ended up coming across it less than 20 minutes later, but because it was such a slow trickle, it took me close to 30 minutes to filter a liter and a half of water. Ugh.

I put my pack back on, now heavier with the water, and within 10 minutes found another trickling “stream” but with a slightly better drop from the trickle, so I would have been able to fill up faster from this spot. I was seriously irked. It felt like the birds were laughing at me, with all their chitter chatter going on around me, and then the squirrels chimed in, too. I may or may not have held out loud conversations with them, I may or may not have used a bit of profanity when I told them where they could shove their squawky laughs. Don’t judge me.

Anyway, after that slight hiccup, my mood shifted upwards and I continued to have a pretty good, although grueling day. The trail was a downhill meandering deal for a good bit of the morning, before I entered the three ridges wilderness. Then, it was a climb up and over a mountain, I guess with three ridges, lol.. it was long and irritating-mostly because it was rocky and hot and had bees everywhere. I actually put my bug net on for bugs.. ha. Luckily I was smart enough to eat my lunch at the shelter right before that climb, and get more water, so at least I wasn’t hangry AND getting swarmed with bees and mosquitoes while I ate.

The “views” on three ridges were obscured by overgrown trees and bushes, so while I could see the mightiness of the mountains surrounding me, they didn’t show up in pictures. But they were gorgeous either way. I kept moving forward and started the descent that led to almost painful knees. There were a few steps that caused a twinge here and there, but overall it was just annoying with the rocks and not too bad.

I got to a shelter at the bottom and filled up both of my water bottles. I liked this area, but I hadn’t hit 15 miles yet, and that’s sort of my goal, to hit a 15 minimum unless it’s a “get to town” day. So, I pushed forward. There was a river with a suspension bridge at the bottom of the three ridges wilderness, with perfect campsites.. but it’s close to a road and there was a lady there laying out in the sun that clearly just walked over.. I get a little unsettled about camping close to roads when I’m alone. You never know if a crazy person might try to come see who’s camping there.

Not to mention, this was only at 14.2 miles for the day.. so I needed to get a bit farther. At 4pm, as I passed this bridge, I realized that the top of The Priest mountain is 5.1 miles away. I had thought it was only 4, but realized where my mistake was made when I was planning. I was rounding instead of actually calculating, so I was off. I decided that I was going to push myself and get to the top of that behemoth today. I knew I’d probably be setting up camp in the dark, but so be it. I didn’t want to do it tomorrow morning.
In that 5.1 miles, I had over 3 thousand feet of elevation gain. It was most definitely the most difficult part of the trail I’ve done since being up north.. but even still, it wasn’t “hard” per say, there was no obstacle courses or pulling my body with my 30 pound pack up and over a rock face.. it was just normal hiking-combined with sucking a whole lot of air.

It took me until 6:25 to reach the “top” and then it leveled out as it winded across the summit to the side with beautiful ledges, which I paused at to take pictures of the sun setting. I wished I had enough water to camp right there, it was so perfect. But, with all my wind sucking I also drank almost all of my 2 liters of water.. whoops. Plus, I was absolutely soaked with sweat and really needed to wash off in a stream, and the shelter ahead promised to have that available.

So, I kept going. I was 0.2 miles away from the shelter, hiking slightly downhill, when a bear darted across my path and continued down the trail in the direction I was going! OH MY GOD. NOOOOO. He was fast too! Like, it kind of scared me how fast he was. I started yelling out “hey bear!” And “I’m still coming this way bear!” And “go away bear!” I never saw it again, but I’d hear it thrashing about ahead of me, or off to the left ahead..

When I got to the side trail with the shelter, I saw that the AT went right, the side trail went left, and the camping area was straight ahead. I set up my tent still loudly yelling, I even threw in some “anybody else here!?” “People would be nice!” “Hello out there!” With my bear chants. I never heard anything or got a response. Since the sun was going down, I quickly unpacked and got my food, water bottles and filter, anything smelly, and clothes to change into-then hightailed it to the shelter-still yelling-so I could get water, wash off, change, eat dinner, and leave my food down there somewhere, in attempts to keep the bear far away from me.

When I got to the shelter, 2 hikers were there! They never saw the bear and never heard me yelling. That’s a little unsettling. I started knocking out my chores. I ate dinner while chatting with them, they’ve thru hiked the AT twice and are currently out on a section hike. They informed me that there was no bear box or pole, but did say I could just leave my food with them in the shelter.. they were keeping theirs with them. I ended up hanging mine in a tree nearby, and told them that way if the bear eats them during the night, they couldn’t blame my food for attracting it to them lol. They laughed.

I finally gathered the stuff to come back to the tent, my clothes and headlamp.. I also carried a good “hitting rock” with me too. They told me to have a rock to hit it with or throw at it to scare it away if I end up startling it on my way back to camp. They had several throwing rocks in the shelter with them by the time I headed out. I have 2 in my tent with me now, and, also at their recommendation, I have my bug spray next to me too, just in case something goes real bad, I can spray it’s eyes with it-haha, I don’t think it’ll help me at that point, but whatever, it’s close by anyway.

I can tell I’m slap worn out, because while the bear scares the shit out of me, I’m so tired that I really just want to go to sleep and I hope if it comes sniffing around it just leaves me be and doesn’t do anything loud enough to wake me up. I’ll definitely put my earplugs in tonight! I don’t want anything, mice or rabbits hopping around, to make me think that big ole booger is back to eat me. I even have my dirty socks propped up on top of my other gear-along with my shoes, hoping the stench deters any and everything roaming around out there.

Overall, I’m pretty damn proud of me today. I can’t believe I knocked out 19 miles, with the last 5 being going uphill to the top of The Priest. I was giving myself bailout points along the way, “well if you get to the river after 4:30, it’s ok to just camp there..” things like that. But I did what I originally set out to do. It’s a good feeling.

Anyway, I’m going to try to sleep.. and pray I don’t have anymore scary encounters tonight. I literally just heard an owl hoot over me, so maybe it’ll keep the other creatures away. It also just confirmed that I’m not getting back out of my tent until morning, unless absolutely necessary.

Sheesh. Goodnight y’all! Praying for sweet dreams for all of us!