Last night I was visited by a mouse. I had stowed a half eaten Snickers bar in a mesh pocket in my tent. I woke up a few times overnight to the sounds of pattering mouse feet racing across the top of my tent. I thought I was just being paranoid until I awoke to discover a hole in the outside mesh of my tent. The little guy chewed thru and liberated my snickers bar. I found it nibbled and laying on the ground. Lesson learned. No food in tent overnight. We hang our food bags in the tree to keep the bears away. This is called a Bear Bag. I am now going to refer to them as Mouse Bags as the mice seem to be a bigger issue than the bears.
We all broke camp around 9am. Pace Car and Phil were the first ones out and accidentally headed South out of camp. We hiked all day expecting to run into them, not realizing they had gone the wrong way. They finally caught up with us by the end of the day. We had all put in a big day and pushed thru more rain and cold. Our friend Max bailed out into Helen GA. He's having trouble with his foot and also needs to shakedown his pack to reduce his weight. He's carrying a lot of non-essential items and is paying the price. I hope to see him up the way again.
The rest of us pushed on to a campsite located at an old cheese factory site. In the 1800's an eccentric Northerner had taken a land grant and decided to start a cheese factory up on this remote mountain top. Apparently he made a superior cheese and won several accolades. The site is now empty and nothing remains of the old factory. It's still an interesting spot. It's half way up Tray Mtn., so it will be nice to finish the climb in the morning.
When we rolled into camp, Grim was already there and had a BIG camp fire going. It was very cold and rainy so this was a sight for sore eyes. I setup my tent, pumped some water, cooked dinner, and went to bed. I was beat! I hiked 13 mi today. My new boots are treating my feet well. I have some nasty blisters from my previous pair but after a few painful first steps in the morning I'm able to walk all day with only a little dull pain. Tomorrow calls for more bad weather. We're going to push out 14 miles and head into Hiawassee GA for resupply and to get a hotel room for the night. Living out in the cold rain SUCKS! I'm dreaming of cheeseburgers and the Holiday Inn Xpress tonight... Ive hiked 54.5 AT miles... 2126.5 to go!
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