Wed, 18 Oct 2006
Miles Today: ~3.25
Total Miles: ~17.5

Today was the opposite of yesterday. Where everything was miserable and gloomy then, today was perfect. It was weird being in a hotel last night…

Amazingly, and for the first time that I can ever remember, I wanted to get up earlier than my traveling companion(s). Usually, I’m the one sleeping in and not caring about missing a free breakfast, but I told Mindy I was getting up at 8:30 for the continental breakfast. She groaned and said she’d be up later.

After checkout, we wanted to kill some time, figuring the trails would still be too wet. It was expected to be sunny with a high of 75 (Relient K anyone?), much different from the previous day, and the trails should dry up nicely by late afternoon.

To kill some time, we decided to visit some local caverns. They were everywhere in this area, so we had plenty of choices. However, after driving to one and calling the others and learning they all cost more than we were willing to pay, we went looking for something to waste some time. We didn’t look long. There was an advertisement on the radio for a pirate-themed corn maze - Maize Quest - and we had our answer.

This was an interesting maze, different from the few I had done before. Rather than simply finding your way from the entrance to the exit, we were given a sheet with puzzles and clues. Our goal was to make it through the maze, searching for stations and collecting answers along the way. Each clue contained a letter which may or may not have been part of the “secret” word. Other stations told us which letters were part of the word. Interesting twist on the standard mazes I had done before.

The maze killed enough time, so we grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed back to SNP and the A.T. This time, we were going to do it differently, though. Rather than pick up where we left off in the southern district, we picked a more interesting sport in the central district. We drove part of Skyline Drive, actually getting to see some views for a change, and made our way to Stony Man Mtn. The A.T. intersected a park trail here, and it was this point that the A.T. reached it’s highest point in SNP. We left our packs behind and climbed to the summit of Stony Man. Awesome view from the top! We were on the western side of the ridge for a change, so we could see the valley and towns below.

After enjoying the view for a bit, we hiked back to the parking area, picked up our gear and started south on the A.T. Our plan at this point was to head towards Hawksbill Mtn, the highest peak in the park. Fall had definitely hit this section of the park more so than the southern section, and the leaves on the ground were much thicker. We lost the trail at one point and did some trailblazing. You know those movies and books where the protagonist gets lost in the woods or elsewhere, then sees a stag/dear/unicorn/etc. which shows him the way? Well, that happened to me. As we were stumbling around searching for the trail, I saw two deer grazing. They started walking away, so I following them. A few minutes later, there was the trail! Pretty cool experience.

We hiked until dark and set up camp at Pollack’s Knob. We should reach the summit trail easily tomorrow. We also plan to leave the A.T. tomorrow. Since we’ve barely seen any views along the way, we’re going to hike some of the more interesting park trails instead. There’s a loop trail down into a canyon that follows a stream and has plenty of waterfalls.

The weather is fantastic tonight, and we finally got to see the sun set. I “enjoyed” some mint chocolate chip astronaut ice cream, too. Wasn’t too bad; tasted a little like fudge from Gatlinburg, though really dry. As Mindy has noted before, we didn’t see or hear many animals at night in the southern district, but they’re definitely active here. This very friendly buck startled me as I was searching for a camping spot. I walk right up on him, not even noticing he was there until he slowly walked off.

It’s amazing what a difference coming 60 miles north made. Looking forward to the trail tomorrow!