8/27/03 Twin Brooks was a big disappointment. It was after 5pm when we arrived and there was no caretaker around. The directions posted on the sign for finding water offered two choices: .3 mile back down the trail south, or .2 mile further north on the trail. Because we were already tired we selected the shorter route, .2 mile north. We went together to carry the water back so Rough wouldn't have to make extra trips. We climbed and climbed up the trail over rocks and roots on weary, wobbling legs for over .3 mile before we gave up any hope of finding water. We turned around and wobbled our way back to the sign. Rough was really pissed, but what could we do? We had to have water, it was getting dark and cold, and there was no caretaker around. Back we went down the trail to the sign and then hiked .3 mile more to the water source south of the sign. With the .6+ miles north and back and another .6 to the southern source we added over 1.2 miles to our hiking day. We had already extended ourselves by hiking over 10 miles to get to Twin Brooks and adding as little as 1 more mile to get water left us totally exhausted -- and we still didn't have the tent up or dinner cooked. Tumble hurriedly put up the tent, but the wind had picked up and the temperature dropped making it a much more difficult task. Meanwhile, Rough cooked dinner and we ate while the sun set. We cleaned up in the dark, shivering in the cold, and crawled into our sleeping bags. We lay awake a long time talking about the difficult hike we have tomorrow and whether we'd be physically able to hike Mansfield or whether we would need to delay it a day to rest and recover from the strain of today's hike.