June 11, 2025

We deciced to eat breakfast over by our tent rather than deal with the mansplainers first thing in the morning. Sleep was… challenging. It was hot and the strange noises went on for awhile and I was just so ready to hear something awful. Then, around 5am, there was a very curious creature sound that wasn’t upsetting but very confusing. Still not sure what it was. Sort of mechanical. Sort of like a squirrel. It surrounded us and then slowly faded away. I checked for the fawn on my way back from the privy. Either it was very far down in the leaves or it had moved on already. The birds soon took over the sound waves with their morning ruckus.

We had another 9ish mile day ahead, so we neither rushed nor dallied our way out of camp. We set up our beginning days to be very moderate so our now older bodies wouldn’t immediately revolt when we asked them to carry 26-27lbs for many days in a row. It was another steamy but thankfully dry day. Three in a row! The air quality was not amazing for the middle part of the day, and it was evident by the haze in the air and the extra effort of everything. Somewhere in the middle of the day, we crossed over highway 70 on a pedestrian footbridge. We both felt like ants about to be squished by semi-trucks even though we were high above the din of vehicles. Humans are so loud. And so destructive.

The sentiment of alienation continued with a “Free Palentine” graffiti on an underpass. I was heartened to see it, but also so deeply saddened that it still needs to be said and still seems so far from possible.

After a short hike alongside the very loud highway, we lugged ourselves up the long ascent towards the Annapolis Rocks turn-off. Made sure to stop for our first coral mushroom sighting of the day. Love those fancy little friends. We also keep seeing red slime mold, which we have taken to calling red matter.

The approach to our destination finally relented to a fern covered plateau with fewer ups and more day hikers.

The tent sites at Annapolis Rocks proved to be very underwhelming. Rocky. Slanted. Small tent pads that would barely accommodate our slightly larger 2 person tent – we upgraded from the Zpacks duplex to the Zpacks offset duo to get a little more length and a slightly wider upper half of the bathtub. More room, but a tighter squeeze in tent sites with wooden boundaries. After checking out nearly all the sites (and spotting a scarlet tanager along the way!) we settled on number 3 and began the task of cramming ourselves into the tent pad. It was predicted to be a dry night, which is good because we had a B- pitch that likely would have led to serious splashing in the rain.

We plopped ourselves on a rock and watched the wasps while we had snacks. It was so early that we would need to filter more than the usual amount of water, but the water was far enough away that it would be a toil to make the trip multiple times. Beetle was exhausted, so I volunteered to ferry our water and made the 0.2 (?) mile trip down to the stream. I took a detour to go check out the group site that I camped at back in 2017 during one of my first few nights on the trail. It was unrecognizable. Grown over and divvied up into established tent pads, but there were still stream side ferns and I saw a deer snacking in the distance.

The spring area was delightful, so when I got back to camp, I suggested we eat there for dinner, partially to get ourselves away from our tent with food smells and partially because it was so peaceful. Unfortunately, 90 minutes later when we actually went down for dinner, it was a buggy nightmare. We had brought our rain coats in the event of mosquitoes, but I ended up wearing mine around my legs because I kept getting chomped. So much for my cozy dinner idea. We rushed through our food, walked our bear cans all the way back up the hill and past our tent site to stash them in the bear pole area underneath some bushes. It was their first maiden voyage in the wild because we’ve had bear boxes the other two nights.

We settled into the tent feeling grimy and tired and unenthused by the highway sounds and the hordes of day hikers coming up to check out the views. Lucky for us, most of them were gone by the time sunset rolled around. We walked up to the rocks around 8:15 and watched the sun dip below the distant mountains. Not a ton of color, but still very beautiful minus the constant sound of trucks drifting up the hillside.

Went to bed wondering about the little fawn buddy and hoping for better sleep.

mile 1042.1 – 1051.2 (9.1) Annapolis rocks campground

total miles: 25.2

creature feature: the deer by the stream, a literal orchestra of birds in the canopy, and the scarlet tanager sighting!