Day 8 — 15 miles
Pass Mountain Hut to Gravel Springs Hut
June 9, 2002

Dad took us to the trail at about 6:00 a.m. We started hiking with quite a bit of foot pain. Four Vitamin I later we were hiking.

We began our climb up to the top of Pass Mountain, passing the spur trail to the Pass Mountain Hut and continued on, crossing Skyline Drive a couple of times.

Near Burgess Gap we heard a noise up ahead. We walked up carefully, and ahead we saw a small bear running down from the rocks. We were psyched, we had gone so long without seeing one, then 3 in two days.

We got to the Elkwallow Wayside at right around 9:00 a.m., when it opens. Jeremy and I relished the idea of hanging out and having both breakfast and lunch at the wayside. So we went in and bought breakfast. It was terrible. As we were eating we were chatting with some tourists. Then a couple of slack packers we'd seen the previous day arrived. They were Ishmael and Grinder.

We talked with them for about a half-hour or so. They took off since they were doing a 26 mile day. As they were leaving Hamsterhead came into the wayside. She got breakfast and came over to talk with us. After her there were a number of thru-hikers arriving at the wayside, including Heman and Detour. We were surprised to see them again. We chatted with them and found that Heman had gotten sick again and they spent the night and a day at Skyland Lodge. It ended up being a very expensive stop, but at least he was feeling better. Detour's feet were doing much better now too.

By the time we finished catching up, everyone was getting their lunches, so Jeremy and I went in to get ours. Cheeseburgers sounded good, so that's what it was. We made some phone calls after lunch, called Stacey, called Debi. Soon we were ready to leave, it was 5.7 miles to the shelter for the night, but we had already spent 3 hours at the wayside and we were ready to get going.

There was a 2-mile climb to the top of Hogback Mountain, but we flew up it. We heard a noise in the woods about a half-mile before the hut, but it was too dense to see what it was. We made it to the shelter in just under 2 hours, in really good time. We knew we didn't want to stay in that shelter. There were stories as far as a week away of how big the rats are here.

We got to camp, took the boots and packs off and got some water. While Jeremy filtered our water, I set up the tent. These were the smallest sites yet, it took some work to get it set up. Within an hour, Hamsterhead, Heman and Detour caught up with us again.

We talked about alcohol stoves and how to build them. Heman and Detour were experimenting to see if it would be worth it to start carrying the alcohol stove instead of the regular one. So far they haven't made a choice. Early evening, Sensei and his wife arrived at the shelter. They are figure skaters and he is hiking most of the trail, southbound. We had dinner and hung out talking with everyone. We were the last to bed, but once again we were up at 5:30 a.m.