Aug 18th, Day Eighteen

Ahhhh Porcupine!

Last night we stayed in the Bavata Kill lean-to, but I would not recommend it to anyone.  The camping near it was very poor, so we had to set up in the actual lean to its self.  When we got there we could see it was kind of falling apart, lots of the boards were fallen down into the floor, or held up by rocks.  We thought it strange but didn’t think much else of it.  So in the middle of the night Miles is sleeping and all the sudden there is a noise outside the tent.  It sounded like someone taking a butter knife and scraping the wood with it.  It was about 2 feet from our heads, so Miles turned on his light hoping the change would drive away whatever it was (we assume at this point it’s a porcupine).  The light does nothing and its back to eating the floor in no time; Miles smacks the side of the tent and pounds on the floor a bit.  As soon as he falls back to sleep the gnawing starts again.  Finally he opens the tent and shines the light out; sure enough, there is a little beady eyed porcupine looking at us.  Finally he stayed away for the rest of the night.

Entering more rolling hills again.

We crossed our last Catskills 3500 peak today, and we are not really sad to see them go.  Miles claims his legs have become completely deconstructed.  The sights are amazing, but we are ready to go on to new terrain.  We will still have some hard days; they will just not contain mountains.  We have about three days in a row coming up where we want to make about 20 miles each day.  This is due to the lack of campsites in this part of the trail.  Everything was so nice back on the Appalachian Trail; there was a shelter every twelve or so miles, and there were numerous campsites in between them.  Out here it is not hiker friendly at all, there is one shelter and in most areas they tell you you’re not allowed to camp.  That is one of the biggest disadvantages I have seen of hiking such a seldom used trail. 

Pretty happy to be crossing the last peak.

Traveled 16.35 miles of trail.  

-SM-

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