Day 46 - 16th May - Iron Mt Shelter to Abingdon Shelter - 15.9 miles

A very memorable day on the trail. I come face to face with a biiiiiig bear who is heading down the trail towards me as the trail crosses a creek, and the trail is surrounded by dense vegetation. He is only 30 metres away and I see him before he sees me. I stand and watch. He looks up. I think - where is Digby? he should be here to watch this. Then the bear turns around and disappears into the forest. Thankyou bear!

Then we see a big black blur running alongside the trail - another bear. This place is infested with bears.

We find a carton of beer on the trail. Two thru-hikers from 2007 who have come to Damascus to celebrate the trail days, came out on to the trail and left the carton for us. Bud-lite. We take one can each to carry for lunch.

Five minutes later, we stumble across the most memorable trail magic. It is a 'Jesus Box' full of cakes and ice cold cans of lemonade [someone has just come and topped up the ice - thankyou]. There are four different sorts of cakes - with cream, each individually wrapped in cellophane. I eat three 'cream' cakes and drink 2 cans of lemonade[or soda as the Americans call it]. This is a bear proof box maintained by a church group to provide sustenance to those in need [AT hikers] and we appreciate it.

Alison at tje Jesus Box reading the log  book to see who has partaken and said thankyou.

 After stuffing ourselves with food, we reach a crossroads, and a special part of the trail - a place where wheelchairs can be used. We looked at the gradient and decided that you would have to be fit to roll your own chair up these slopes, but maybe Americans only used motorised chairs. We never saw one.

We arrive at the shelter at about 5pm and make camp. The water source is a long way down. Digby heads down for water and then the most drenching thunderstorm unloads, and the best water is actually at the shelter running off the roof, so I catch what I can and wait for Digby to return.

By the time he gets back, he is wet through - I am dry as I am standing in the shelter talking to Flyboy. It is obvious that we have pitched our tent in a very wet place - a lake is already starting to form. So Digby, already soaked, through goes out into the thunderstorm and shifts the tent about 50 metres to a drier site. Flyboy looks at me and says 'He's amazing, shifting that tent for you'. I reply 'If you want to hike with your future girlfriend, learn from this experience'. It rains all night and once again the tent leaks and my sleeping bag gets wet. We are only 10 miles from Damascus, so we will be in a warm bed tomorrow night.