Appalachian Trail (day 71) - Manchester to Rock Garden / mile 1681

After a great "make it yourself" breakfast consisting of scrambled eggs, toast, coffee and yogurt, we loaded our gear into Jeff's truck and were back on trail at 7:15 AM I've weighted my pack before leaving the hostel and it came up to 15.5 kg or 35 pounds, definitely not light but it was the weight I got used to.

I've hiked with Yukon until the top of Bromley Mountain and we talked trail gossip. Recently one of the shelters in the Smokey Mountains in Georgia got closed as the bear stole someone's backpack from it, then returned as there was no food in it and held the hikers hostage inside for two hours. I don't think this bear had a bright future ahead if it.

Trail was passing next to a Griffith Lake named after some wealthy 19th century businessman also known as "Lumber King". Baker Peak was another interesting section, a climb over partially opened ledges it reminded me of Knifes Edge ridge walk in Pennsylvania. I was planning to camp at the Little Rock Pond campsite but since it was Saturday and weather was nice there was plenty of weekend hikers camping here tonight so I decided to push on.

Just before the next campsite while hiking through a peaceful pine forest I went past the remains of a rock garden, someone has knocked down most of it as an act of "leave no trace" policy, as if putting one rock on top of the other was damaging to the environment. Place still had a lot of charm to it and I decided to pitch my tent here for tonight, I've rebuilt a couple of stone structures as an act of disapproval of knocking them down, cooked a ramen bomb with salami and drunk a can of beer offered to me by Prometheus, one of the weekend hikers I've met by the pond.

It was very peaceful here with only few bugs flying around and the pine trees smelled amazing.

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