Mashipacong Shelter
7/15/1999 ~ Mashipacong Shelter (12.5 miles hiked)
OK, I've seen enough bear now. Save some for the hikers who haven't seen any. This morning at breakfast, a female black bear snuck up behind me and attempted to steal my breakfast. Fortunately for me, bears aren't known for stealth, and she stepped on a stick or something and alerted me to her presence. Mayhem ensued. I woke Chile up to help me scare the bear off (it was 9:30 by now). It took 15 minutes of yelling and banging around and during that time, she got one hell of a lot closer than I'd like to be to a critter that size. I also saw a cub (size of a big house cat and very cute) about 25 feet away. I really wonder if we "scared" the bear off at all. I suppose it just figured out that it wasn't getting any food and it got bored with us.
We hastily packed and left the site. She wandered off towards the privy. I did the first 3 miles on no food and with my pack all packed wrong. We went to the bakery on US206 and chowed down. We met the first southbounder that any of us have seen, Rainbow 6. He had some really interesting opinions about the government, and I found him nice and entertaining. I went on to Gren Anderson and received some trail magic from Desperado in the form of a cold Dr. Pepper.
Chile and I hiked from there to here today. Up to dinner, I ate a donut, a jelly donut (thanks for the recommendation Pat, it was yummy), a bear claw, a quart of OJ and the aforementioned Dr. Pepper. Pure sugar power, but it got me here.
More nice views today. Jersey is much prettier than PA and rumor has it that the rocks will end at High Point which I will make tomorrow. Can you tell I'm counting on the rocks to be gone? My ankles are feeling rubbery and sore every day. I also met another nice Ridge Runner. She's also staying at the shelter. Without her, there'd be no water because the well has gone dry. All my clothes were caked with dust today. it was hot, and it hasn't rained here in ages. She asked me about the bear I saw and said that that shelter has been plagued by that bear since it successfully used the same technique to scare someone away from their food bag. That poor bear is headed for doom, it appears. It's truly a shame that those cubs will also learn this sort of behavior. The bears are not a real problem right now, but I suspect they will be, possibly as soon as next year, as soon as there is food pressure. With a 1200 (and growing) bear population in the AT corridor in the NJ-NY section, a time will come when the bears will need to be aggressive if they want to eat.
Another problem: Rutherford Shelter has apparently been home to a large group of copperheads. They've apparently bitten more than one hiker while they were asleep, so the shelter is now "closed". How do they close a shelter? I would go down there to check it out, but Rutherford isn't just off the trail, it's down a few hundred feet. I'm not curious enough to add that up and down to my day. I'm sure there are plenty of enterprising snakes living under the shelters up north because I haven't seen or even heard of a single mouse since I got on the trail. Too bad these are pit vipers instead of the usual black snakes.
