It rained last night. It was fantastic to be laying inside of a building listening to it come down through a cracked window instead of on top of our rainfly. It reminded me of being home and leaving the windows open during storms. I had been worried about waking up with a mouse on my face. I’ve heard of that happening sometimes. No mice came scurrying, at least none that I know of. We still pulled our sleeping pads away from the edge of the cabinets we were next to. Mice like to run on the edges of things. You are also supposed to leave your pockets open on your packs so they can explore, otherwise they tend to chew a hole to get into your things.
We didn’t leave until close to 10a. It was way too late. The mountaintop was too beautiful to leave and the warming hut was too cozy. Everything was engulfed in a cloud. I love foggy mornings like that!
We had lunch about seven miles in for the day. At the end of it I saw three hikers walking towards the shelter. The woman started to wave and I realized who it was; Kyle, Jordan, and Alan! Holy cow! I haven’t seen them since Trail Days, before that it was mile three hundred something. They were short a person, Brock. He had to go home because his shoulder injury just wouldn’t heal. Alan is GQ. Last I saw them, Kyle and Jordan didn’t have trailnames yet. We were updated. Jordan is “Aspirations” because she started choking on coffee one morning. Kyle is now “PR” as in public relations because he’s the one they send to the front to talk to other people. I was so excited to meet up with them again! They all started the same day when we did. In fact, we were on top of Springer Mountain the right behind them. We camped together several nights and were in sync for a while. We lost them just before the Smokies.
The last several miles of the day we basically ran. It was supposed to rain and we really wanted to be set up before it did. We came to a lake with a shelter near it. In Vermont, some shelters require you to pay. We were avoiding that because it would be $10- per couple, so we kept pushing. About a half mile to a mile after that we found a group site complete with two tent pads, a picnic table, and its’ own privy. Best part about it? No fee. At least none we saw. We stopped there just in time for the skies to open up. The rain didn’t last long and luckily we had the tent up before any came down. Everything was still dry. It’s a huge win and an even bigger answer to prayer. Yeah, I may have literally been praying that the rain holds off until camp. Kind of ridiculous, I know. However, I sleep so much better when everything is dry.
-ansel