I discovered late on day 1 that my fancy new battery pack will not charge my hearing aids because the current draw is so low that the battery shuts off after 15 minutes. Luckily Tim had a spare USB cable and after a few false atarts I figured out that as long as I have something else plugged into the battery, the hearing aids will charge.
I wound up running into the same four people over and over… Tim, shown above, Chris and Ellissa who were all at Springer Mountain shelter, and Dana whom we met a little later. I made a side trip to Johns Falls, shown above, where I ran into Harry, a 24 year old bohemian who had just been swimming in the pool below the falls, had a cone of sage smoking nearby, and offered me a drink of wine from an actual gourd.
It was a hot day, probably a high around 26C, with lots of sunshine. Great views from up on the ridges. Eventually I left the others and forged ahead, covering 15.8 miles to Gooch Mountain shelter. I slept on the upper platform in the shelter. There were people asleep in the lower platform when I arrived at 6:15. I hit the hay at 8 after a successful experiment of presoaked red lentils cooked for two minutes with curry powder, sundried tomatoes and onion powder, left to sit 20 minutes while I made my bed. It made way more than I could eat so I put the rest in the Nalgene bottle I use for presoaking – next day’s lunch ready made.