Once again, I met up with the lead hikers very shortly after getting started out. I didn't stop for long, as I knew I'd be seeing them and have an opportunity to socialize tonight. At Grassy Pond, I took the blue blaze into the now abandoned campsite for a look around. When I returned to the trail I had no idea if Ian was now still behind me, or up in front. The morning air was already very humid, and even the early sunshine beginning to feel hot. The trail here is a “tunnel” between scrub and brush walls about 12’ high on both sides through pine forest. Visibility is mostly limited to straight ahead, and restricted by twists and turns of the trail. I was looking for a fallen tree in the shade for a suitable place for a quick water break, when I disturbed an animal that was very close, or possibly even on the trail. There was a bend in the trail at that point, and it was very shaded, but the noise receding off to the east was of a large animal, very unlike the bounding sound of a startled deer, more of a crashing, thunderous stomp. My obvious thought was “Bear”. I stopped, peered into the dense understorey, hoping to at least glimpse the famous “bear butt disappearing into the woods”, but saw nothing, no sign at all. Whatever it was had clearly retreated quite far off, but I decided to continue on a little way before I took my break. Just in case. After a fairly brisk quarter mile I decided I had put enough distance between me and my “probably a bear” to take a break, and came around a large bush to a widening of the trail where an old and apparently non-maintained trail crossed. There was no log to sit on, but the less dense cross trail allowed a little more of the cooling breeze to flow down to ground level. Removing my pack, I perched on the pack on the west side of the crossing. Ten minutes or so later, I reached around me to re-secure to the water bottle. While looking down, I heard movement coming up the trail behind the large bush. I couldn’t see round the bush, but made the natural assumption it was Ian. Surprise! Bear! Head on, on all fours, and about 3 feet tall at the withers, with a blue collar and radio transmitter. He saw me at the same time I saw him. It was a split second encounter. We were both as surprised as the other. He crashed off again to the east, I picked up and hastily shouldered the pack.
I remember thinking several things at once: “Bear!”, “That’s not Ian - Run”, “Where’s my camera?”, “Forget the water bottle – Run”, “Wish I’d had my camera ready for that”, “Run”, “Wow, I should warn Ian there’s bear”. I hastily scrawled the word “BEAR” in 12 inch high letters in the sand with my hiking pole, and set off up the trail at a fast pace. In my hurry, with my pack not properly balanced, and trying to look behind while making forward progress, I stumbled into the trailside brush, narrowly missed poking my eye out on protruding branch, and wrenching my right hamstring. After limping along a little further I came to a fallen tree at just the right height, angle, and position to take the weight of the pack while I readjusted it, and check out the minor damage, while still having a reasonable view back down the trail. I had just readjusted the backpack and was bending down to massage the back of my right thigh when I caught a glimpse of something black and moving on the shaded trail behind me. I ignored the 40lbs on my back, my straining hamstring, and my heart pounding. I ran. I think I ran for about half a mile before I reach the junction a road and ATV dirt trail, and the terrain changed from dense understoried pine to sparse/clear cut open pine. I collapsed on the grass by the road. With a clear view of open space around me, I grabbed my full 2 liter water bladder from the pack, almost drained it, then lay sprawled and cooling, heart gradually slowing, in the shade. Distance, and drop in adrenaline increases rationality. By now I was pretty sure the bear was probably just ambling along the trail minding his own business, as scared of me as I was of him. I may or may not have seen him reappear at the log, it could have just been a moving dense shadow. All I heard now were ATV motors in the distance, coming closer, headed in my direction. Ian caught up to me at my next break, around 10am as we had discussed. He had not seen any sign of the bear, but had seen my sign in the sand. As a classic example of how men think differently to women. I wrote “BEAR”, he read “BEER” and spent a few moments looking round the trail crossing for a cooler of cold ones! I’m just glad there wasn’t a hungry bear waiting in the brush for an unsuspecting, beer hunting hiker! As we approached Lake Delancy the trail enters an area of old clay pits, making it very reminiscent of the "trenches" in the beech woods near where I grew up. It was a little hilly, very pretty and would have been a pleasant place to hang out for while. Unfortunately, my wrenched hamstring was starting to bother me, as I changed my foot angle to bear my weight going downhill on the slippery oak leaf covered slope, I pulled the muscle again. At the same time, the revenge of last night's reheated prefrozen sandwich also made it's presence known. I was not a happer backpacker for a few minutes. Ian was ahead of me at this point, and must have been concerned that I hadn't caught up to him, as he kept calling down the trail to see if I was OK, but I finally caught up when he promised it was only another 1/4 mile. He lied! We saw an old blue blaze, but only a few steps down the unused trail made us think the trail marking was wrong. We turned back to the main trail and continued north. This area has ATV trails running everywhere. Thankfully, some of these have been blocked and are starting to recover from the "sandy pit" stage and start to look more like hiking trails. A little way down the trail was one of these recovering trails, and I could see the campground road at the end of it. Thinking that if the blue trail we saw was actually correct, we should go down to the road to look for Deb's truck, I set off down it. No sign of Deb or the truck, but there was a bend in the road, so I walked back east on the road for a while, but still no sign. We set off west again, Ian on the trail, and me paralleling him, hobbling along the dirt road. After a while Ian joined me down on the road. We walked west on the road a while, still no sign, so we turned round and walked east again, back the way I had come,and past where I had walked down to the road again. At the point where the road totally disintegrated into a sand pit I asked a passing ATv'er where the campground entrance was, and of course, it was back to the west, and he said it was "a long way". I'm sure I could have got a ride if I'd wanted too, but we trudged back west and picked up the trail again.
Finally, actually not too far down, but far enough for my leg, we came out to another dirt road, and found Deb and truck, and cold fresh water (thanks Deb), and cold diet Pepsi (thanks Deb), and cool shade to sit in.Deb drove us to Rodman Campground and we claimed our campsite and collapsed in the shade for afternoon siesta. Later, we set up our tents and had a shower to clean up. The birthday dinner was very enjoyable. I finally got to chat with some of the day hikers I had been crossing paths with and playing tag with over the past couple of sections The food was good, and the company pleasant. We discussed my full frontal bear sighting, and that's when I founf out that others had seen or heard him earlier as they had passed through too. I wish I'd known that, I might not have run so fast if I'd known he was just hanging out and wasn't some starved rogue bear looking for a tasty hiker morsel!
After dinner, back to the campsite, the bugs weren't too bad, and it did not seem as sticky as the previous night. We headed into the tents for an early night. I was right, the day hikers DO get up early. They are starting out for the trail at 5:30am! That means a 4:30am start for those of us that want to get tents repacked before hiking.Well we did it, we woke up at 4:30, packed everything we didn't need in my car, and snacks, water cameras, etc, in the now very light backpacks, jumped in the car and followed Jack back to the Lake Delancy trail crossing.
We started out hiking at 6am, and boy do those folkls hike fast, and without stopping. Personally I'm a stop for a water break every hour, and stop if you see something nice, unusual, etc., hiker. I knew we needed to make fairly quick time this morning, as I needed Jack and Liz's assistance to get me back to my car at the end of the hike, but I was determined to enjoy the hike too. At my first stop the majority of the pack of hikers passed me. I leapfrogged a couple of them again when I started back up again, but by my second stop I had caught up to Ian, and we both had been passed by everyone else. We have our own slow and steady, "enjoy the scenery" pace.
I set off again leaving Ian to follow. He finally caught up to me just before we reached the lake at Rodman Dam, and together we caught up to the last day hiker who was just leaving the lake after a break as we arrived. And what a place for a break. The shallow clear lake is edged by a sandy beach covered in huge drfitwood logs. I couldn't resist going in for a swim, then relaxing a while on a log. Once we get up on the dam there will be no shade. We rested and cooled off for a while before tackling the dam road, across the dam, and then the last little shady forest stretch into the campground. 
After cooling off, realxing a while and showering, we were about to set off in Jack and Liz's van when we realized it had a flat tire. Not a big deal with five of us acting co-operatively. After the slight delay, a bit of dust and a little bit of effort we were on our way back to civilization. I've said it several times on the last couple of hot weekend sections. It's too hot for backpacking! Seeing how the remainder of the group base camped and day hiked made a lot of sense to me after spending the past several weekend sections dragging my fully loaded pack and water around in the heat. Day hiking is definitely the way to go for the remainder of the summer!
Having got to know Ian better, he seems like a really nice guy. I'm glad I took the chance to backpack with him, on Charles and Mary's recommendation. He is also planning to hike the entire FL Trail as time allows. He is retired from the military and does not work, so has much more time available to hike than I do, but hopefully I will be able to catch up to him for some weekend hikes occasionally.
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