August 12

I woke up at 5:15 because a mouse was gnawing on some wood in the rafters. The rest of the shelter was up by 5:30 - except for Beth. I let her sleep until 6.

We zipped this morning and were out at 7am. Wow. It was nice to get an early start, because we had over 9 miles to go today. We zipped up Baker Peak. The views were mostly overcast and foggy, but we could see a few houses and mountains in the distance. The fog entwining around the mountains was really quite enchanting. But Beth said, "What view?"

Patches was already at the top when we arrived and we all sat on the rocks watching the mist. Finally the clouds won and our view as obscured.

We bypassed Lost Pond Shelter and headed right for Big Branch Shelter and lunch. We arrived at 11. Beth thought it too early for lunch, but my stomach disagreed. FOOD!

After lunch it was just 3 more miles until Lula Tye Shelter. They went pretty quickly and we were in just after 1pm. Not bad for us - 9 miles by 1pm.

Our fauna for the day was frogs. They were living on the trail. And yes I do mean "ON" the trail. When we scared them walking by, they would swim away ON the trail. We had a lot of creak-trails today and a few pond-trails. But at least the frogs were cute.

Lula Tye Shelter is old and dingy and has a stream running out from the bottom making the front muddy. Now I'm sure it usually doesn’t have a creek, but with the rain we have springs popping out everywhere.

Beth and I headed down to the pond to get water and maybe swim. We only went up to our knees, but that washed the caked on mud off our pants. We didn't see a spring and I forgot the guidebook that had the directions so we just came back and filled up our water from one of the multitude of little springs along the trail.

I was ambitious and made Beth some coffee cake. I've been using my zip stove and everyone is interested in it. Most have never seen one before.

At 11:30 I was woken up by flashes of light. The mountain was all fogged in but it would light up for an instant. Obviously there was lightning in the distance, but it took a while before we could hear the thunder. I expected the rains to come, but they never showed up.