Back On The Hike Again: In Which I Am Almost Eaten By A Ferocious Animal

If you have followed me on the trail this far, you must know that I live in fear of being attacked by a wild animal. Maybe it was the books my Dad gave me to read when I was a kid. Stuff by Jack London and guys like that, usually involving some loner guy almost taken by wild animals when one of the pack stands up to the others and saves him. If the book was really good, the heroic animal is mortally wounded and the man finally realizes it was his old faithful companion that had returned to the wild...sniff. Yeah, those were stupid kids books, but I still remember the parts about being hunted by beasts in the woods. Paul, meanwhile, hasn't a care in the world. He knows so much karate, that I'm sure he is certain he could handle anything that comes his way. Every once in while I gently remind him that there has never been a case of a hiker fending off a savage animal attack with karate skills, but he is not worried like me.
As it turned out, I wasn't wrong to worry about attacks, I was just worrying about the wrong animals...

We were climbing a steady ascent to the shelter on top of a mountain. This was to be our last night on the trail and it was the middle of the week, so we expected to have the whole place to ourselves, and from the location on the map, I could count on getting a great sunrise photo in the morning. I was in the woods, less than two days from all the food I could eat, a bed, a shower, and today the weather was fantastic and I was feeling fine. You know those trips you go on when someone keeps asking "Are we almost there?" That was going on in my head. The GPS seemed to have completely stopped and about every 15 minutes we look and see that we still had a mile to go. There is a thing about mirages when hiking and we called this one the "Shelter Mirage". We'd keep spotting what looked like a rooftop or an outhouse off in the distance only to find nothing when we got there. The sun was going down, and we were still going up, up, up. It really seemed like this was the longest mile I could remember of the whole trip. When we were finally almost there, there was no mirage to tell us that, there were the loud voices of a large group of people laughing and carrying on. I suddenly realized that we might not be staying at the shelter after all if it was already full. We came into a camp of about 10 people that welcomed us with open arms and soon we were all best friends, sharing stories and DIY tips for backpacking. It turned out to be one of the best nights of the trip. Here we met the young women that had quit their jobs to do the whole AT this summer, 2 other couples that were hiking with them and some guys that were just up there for the weekend. It was here that I tried my first and last Ramen Bomb, which is mixing Ramen Noodles with instant mashed potatoes. The mixture doesn't taste bad, it just has the consistency of mashed potatoes with worms floating around in it. We learned a lot from this group, but probably my most important lesson was don't move too fast around a woman with a protective german shepherd. I'm a dog lover if there ever was one, but I do understand that not every dog loves me. Bridger the dog, did like me and just about everybody, but I went to get something out of my pack that happened to be behind his owner and I found myself with kingsize jaws gripping my hand and leg. That was coupled with a growl to let me know how much trouble I was in. His owner called him off and the rest of the time we were together she worried about her dog and tried to make him apologize to me. Instead I got more of an "I got my eye on you!" from the dog, who would then walk over to Paul and ask to be petted. I took it as a compliment, that I looked like somebody rough and tough, while Paul looked like an innocent person that would be good for some petting while Bridger kept his eye on the troublemaker.

Jack London had not prepared me to watch out for man's best friend.