| May 24, 2005 |
| We've been
hiking for a while and have crossed several more styles. Went
through pasture fields with black angus cows. Crossed the
north fork of the Holstein River and now were in the woodlands on
Brushy Mountain and it's sprinkling with cloud cover. I don't
think we'll see much today but our feet. I'm hoping that is
clears up! |
| We're going to
stop at Knot Maul Shelter and fix ourselves a bite of lunch before
moving on. Some mashed potatoes and tea to warm ourselves up. |
| We're on top
of this ridge line and the wind is cold, blowing strong, and the
clouds are moving up the valley. |
| At least the
rain has quit, making it a little bit warmer to hike. I have a
long sleeve shirt on and had to zip my long pants back on to keep me
just a little bit warmer. We're down low now in the valley and
that keeps the wind from hitting us a good bit too. |
| Climbing up
Land Cap Mountain had been smooth and dust covered leaves and small
rocks and roots, with a steep incline. A lot of hard
woods in this area and quite a few hemlocks. Saw a bright
orange salamander on a rock next to the trail. As we climber
higher on the mountain we're beginning to see rhododendron in
bloom again. I'm looking at a big orange honeysuckle in full
bloom. The suns coming out now and if it stays out with this
humidity its going to be hotter than a firecracker in July. |
| The old saying
what goes up must come down - we're headed down under the big rock
boulders and in a big rhododendron thicket that is just absolutely
gorgeous. Just went through a rock fall in the trail.
This makes twice that we have seen bear scat on the trail in a
couple different places. Glad I wasn't sleeping in this area
last night! |
| Going through
a mature hemlock woods, we have run into even more bear scat.
The hemlock area opened up to a large creek stream and across the
stream they has a forest service bridge built. We crossed the
bridge and decided that would be a good place for us to sit down and
rest a little bit, get a snack. |
| Coming up the
valley now, we're walking along a small path straight up the valley
along side a little creek that goes into the big one down where
Simon and I played in the water. We are now up to Forest
Service Road 422 and have about 5 miles to go to Chestnut Shelter.
I understand it's on top of bald, a stone structure that is enclosed
because of the wind. Spirit was also telling me that it was a
fire warden shelter. NOTE:
This shelter was once called "the cave." |
| Starting the
assent up chestnut ridge - 4 and 1/2 mile to Land Cap Mountain, with
about 5 miles of a pretty steep climb up to the cabin. The
creek Simon was playing is called Blick Creek. A good many
blue bells staring to bloom. We're climbing a long stretch of
post steps straight up. |
| Came out of the
woods to what appeared to be an old log road and it used to go to
the fire tower when it was in existence. I've seen 2 cairns built,
one down at the creek and one in the middle of this old road, it
doesn't seem to be marking anything. |
| We're
definitely getting up higher toward the ridge line and a lot more
big boulders, bigger rocks in the trail and the wind is cooler and
looking out over top of the mountains, I can see the sky is a dark
gray. It has been sprinkling. |
| Out into a big
grassy bald, it's very windy and very cold and a lot of dampness in
the air. This a huge area, I can see some old apple trees
around. We should be coming to a spring fed pond before long
and about a mile after that is the shelter. We're hoping to
get to the shelter before it rains. |
| Got to the
spring fed pond and got water. while we were there the rain let
loose and we got soaking wet and the wind was cold. I looked
over into the mountains and the clouds were just shades of gray, by
the time we got into the shelter we were socked in. |
The shelter is
a stone shelter that supposed to sleep 8, but by 9:30pm last night
there was 20 people in there. Spirit and I slept on the cement
floor underneath a bunk. We put down plastic strips and then
we put our pads down and out sleeping bags on top of that.
 Simon
was really cold on the floor, so he slept on my coat for a while,
then he moved over on to the sleeping bag. In spite the cold
and rain and the conditions we slept well. |
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