Another view of the North Fork River
I took this picture because it seemed to be pretty much where I took a picture the last time I hiked this trail.
It was getting dark as I arrived at the stand of short leaf pines where I wanted to make camp. I didn’t want to mess around looking for the trees I used the last time I was here, and set up at the first pair I found that would work. It was dark by the time I’d got the tarp and hammock set up, and it was then I discovered two things.
- A tree right next to where I’d camped was secretly blazed — there was a nail with a reflective head in the tree — which means that this spot is used for hunting. And if the fact that I’m wearing hunter orange has escaped your notice, I’m doing so because it is deer and turkey Bow Hunting season. I wasn’t going to move my camp in the dark so I decided to pretend I hadn’t seen it.
- I discovered the metal spreader bar that runs across the top of my pack was missing. I immediately thought of the ‘boing’ I heard, and then spent some time considering if I needed to backtrack a mile in the morning to where I stopped for lunch. I managed to do a pretty good job of convincing myself that it would be a wasted effort and made a note to contact Zpacks when I got home and find out how to get a replacement. Fortunately, with the pack quite full it seemed to work pretty well without the bar in place.
Copyright © 2022 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.