Foothills Trail
Day 3 - Monday, 2 May 2005
Trip miles: 38.0
The only people I've seen since Chimneytop yesterday were in a trail crew. It was a good day.
Today's sections of trail were very well maintained and I saw a lot of freshly completed improvements. The Southeastern Foot Trails Conference hosted a volunteer vacation this week to work on the area's trails; this must be one of the places they worked on.
Regarding my Hammock Sock experiment, I got 12 degrees of warmth from it last night. It was 55F inside and 43F outside, but I woke up pretty sweaty and dehydrated. It was a lot more humid inside than outside, but I still had no visible condensation on the Sock, even with the 12F temp difference. I think facemask might help with the humidity.
I've also had some problems staying warm...I've been chilled for the past two nights. I increased the sag in my hammock by tightening the ridgeline, which makes the hammock more comfortable but the quilt is either compressing because it's too tight, or it has a gap between the hammock and quilt because it's not tight enough. Usually it's both at the same time at different places. This is pretty frustrating since I was fine waking up in the snow at Hot Springs last weekend! I'm sure the humidity inside the Sock last night didn't help, either.
So last night I put some boiling water in a water bottle and stuck it in my armpits and between my legs and I got warm pretty quickly. Then when I woke up, it was still hot so I added some Jell-O powder to it...YUM. Talk about a good morning pick-me-up! I'm gonna bring Jell-O on any trip that'll get to about 40F! Pop Tarts and an Oatmeal Creme Pie rounded out breakfast.
And speaking of experiments, I'm still not treating my water unless it comes from a big creek or river like Toxaway, where I'm unsure of what all is draining into it. And I just didn't get any from Horsepasture Creek. I figure with a name like that it deserves an extra margin of safety.
I saw the perfect campsite today right at the top of Laurel Fork Falls--good-sized sandy beach with thigh-deep water, about a minute's walk to the falls, nice trail leading up to it from both directions, and you can only get there by hiking in or by boat access from below falls. I definitely want to come back here with the kids.
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I also found the perfect lunch spot at an unnamed stream emptying into Lake Jocassee. Lunch was a pretty simple affair with sausage and cheese rolled into tortillas, but it's easy to make and fills me up pretty well.
Lunch at Lake Jocassee
When I finally got moving after lunch, I saw a family of geese just past the Canebrake Access on Lake Jocassee. As I approached them on the section that's right down by the water, I saw two geese swim out from behind a fallen tree...then I saw the four goslings struggling out between them! They swam about 25' offshore, waited for me to pass, then swam right back in to the same spot.
Shortly after seeing the geese, I was on a gentle ascent when I came upon some interesting tracks. At first I thought it was just a dog or something, but none of the tracks were very clear; they were all smudged I some way. Then I saw one very clear deer print in the middle, which made me stop and look closer. It looked like something was attacking the deer right there on the trail! I saw a few deer tracks, and most of them had soil pushed up on one side where the deer was trying to change directions quickly. The deer print looked a bigger than a fawn but still not full grown. The other prints were about three inches across, but there wasn't a single clear print I could see. It definitely had claws, though, so I assume it was a bobcat. The prints started together on the trail, moved uphill about thirty feet, then left the trail and ascended the ridge. I couldn't find any more prints without leaving the trail, but I scanned the ridge and didn't see any more evidence of a struggle. I never say any blood or anything there on the trail, either...sure made for an interesting find, though.
Those tracks reminded me of yesterday. I saw lots of slugs in the trail being eaten by ants, like there was some sort of bug revolution overnight and I was walking through the aftermath. The big snails seemed to have been traitors, or at least complicit bystanders, as they stood by in safety watching their brethren fall.
Hehe...I scared myself today. After lunch, I decided to make Bearcamp Creek for the night and I needed to put away some miles, so I was really focused on the trail and didn't notice that I had rounded the end of a ridge and hiked into a pretty wide and steep drainage. With the modesty you'd expect of someone on the trail, I let loose a powerful burp and kinda startled myself when it echoed right back at me: LOUD! I didn't hear any animals scrambling away, but it did give me a chuckle.
Trillium
I haven't pooped since Friday. Think of all that extra weight I'm carrying around! This is gonna hurt.
Today's animal count:
- 1 big frog
- 2 geese and 4 goslings
- Lots of squirrels
For the Trail Crew:
- Tree across the trail; diversion is already creating erosion, about .5mi past boat spur at Laurel Fork Falls Access
- Sinkhole in access road, 4'l x5'w x 6'd, just past LFF at the bottom of the hill before the trail forms a T with the logging road. I told the trial crew. The road is still barely passable, but probably not by big service trucks. There's a stream running under the road and you can see it from the hole.