Most of the house was up by 8a. Showers, breakfast, and repacking took us right up to our 11a check out. After that we walked to the end of town to pick up Subway before we going back on the trail. Snow Monkey and Wonder Woman were waiting a couple of more hours for a package of theirs to arrive. I tried to get Hype to hike today with us. He doesn’t have to leave for another day or two. But he has things to do in town before going home. So he stayed back to visit with Snow Monkey and Wonder Woman and then will spend the rest of the time camping just outside of the city.
We had two options today: hike the AT or take the Creeper Trail which is the old AT. The Creeper is supposedly the same amount of miles, but it runs along the river and doesn’t go so far up into the mountains. The views on the Creeper are also supposed to be better. We really considered it, but our purists nature won out and we hiked the AT.
It wasn’t too bad, we left around 12:30p and hiked about 9 trail miles today. For a bit, we had to take a detour off of the AT and onto the Creeper because a bridge was wiped out in the storms. We heard wild turkeys today but didn’t get to see them. We got to see a ton of caterpillars crossing the path. Lotus and I each saved one and then realized there were so many more, it would be an impossible task to relocate all of them. We had two solid ascents and one good descent today. We ended on an ascent. To get to the shelter you had to take a side trail about a quarter mile off of the AT.
Kirby and Atlas were already there when Warthog and I arrived. Lotus followed. It was around 5:30p or so. We kept waiting for Snow Monkey and Wonder Woman, but they never showed. We heard they were going to take the Creeper trail and are guessing they missed where they needed to turn to rejoin the AT in time to connect to this particular shelter. We think they are a shelter farther down the trail. We would press on, but it’s another eight miles from here. Oh man, it’s only day one of us hiking reunited and already we lost people. No one has cell reception so we just have to hope we will catch them tomorrow and rendezvous at the same place for the night.
We ate dinner around a campfire, enjoying the dry evening. It’s predicted to rain for the next three or so days. Although, it doesn’t sound like it’s supposed to be too heavy. The temperature is also supposed to be in the 70’s, so that’s a silver lining to the forecast. Warm rain is a hundred times better than cold rain. Especially when you spend the entire day hiking, eating, and sleeping in it.
The moon is nearly full tonight. It’s so bright, Warthog thought someone was outside with their headlamp on. Nope, it is entirely the moon.
– ansel