I slept over at my parents’ house until 2:45 in the morning, ate a couple of muffins, and then caught an Uber to the airport for another 6am flight to Atlanta, then on to Asheville. Joshua was waiting for me at Asheville Airport and drove me to Wayah gap. Since the road up to the top is now open I asked if he could drive me all the way to the top since I’d already hiked it, this meant that I was only about a mile from Wayah Bald Shelter where I had ended the trip last time. So I was able to continue for another five or six miles to Cold Spring Shelter in spite of only having about 4 hours of hiking time. *If he had just dropped me off at Wayah Gap I would have had three hors of hiking just to get to Wayah Bald).
It was quite warm and sunny, with highs probably around 25°, and almost uncomfortably hot. But the views were beautiful and there were many small flowers popping up. I was able to identify round leaf violets, blue violets, Canadian lousewort, fan club moss, star chickweed, and downy rattlesnake plantain. I ate a few leaves of common plantain and a few blue violet blossoms for my daily dise if vitamin C.
It felt wonderful to be back on the trail. Great weather, a lot more signs of spring, and the walking felt fine. I was able to pitch my tent more or less correctly which is a big relief.
I was thinking of continuing and walking until the next campsite which wasn’t a shelter, but I decided to stop at Cold Gap partly to ensure that I had some social time. I spent a little bit of time talking with people at the shelter before going to look for my tent site. Then I made my dinner, another conure side, with added noodles and Olive oil, but this time I poured the boiling water into the bag so that I don’t have to wash the pot. This is a big Improvement since I don’t really feel like doing dishes at the end of a long day of hiking. Once I had my bear hang up and the tent all done, I took my dinner down to the shelter and sat around and talked with four or five others, ranging an age from probably 20 to my age. It was delightful. It’s nice to be making this more of a social event. Even though I might not see many of these people for more than a couple more days it’s still nice to just socialize.
After supper another hiker, Crash, wanted to look at my tent because some of the ropes on his tent had come untied and he wasn’t sure exactly how to adjust them. He looked mine over, then gave me several tips on how to make my tent stand up better so now my tent is amazingly good. It’s a good thing too because it’s very windy and I’m right on a ridge so the tent needs to be very rigid and robust. It’s 7:00 p.m. now and foggy and very very lightly raining, and I think I will pack it in shortly. I have a double bagged snack of walnuts with me in the tent, and I have my winter puffy, so if I get cold tonight (lows expected of -2C) I will hopefully be able to get back to sleep when the cold wakes me.
Mile 119.4 to mile 125.4. My shortest day yet but I did start at 2pm!
