Finally realizing I wasn’t going to get back to sleep I checked my phone and saw that it was 6:45 which was strange because my alarm should have gone off exactly then (I thought). However it turns out I had set my alarm for 6:50.
I got up and did some organizing. Around 7:15 I got a text from Slim Jim saying I could come in and have coffee anytime. Once I was reasonably well packed and had set aside four Ziploc bags with five cookies each in them in a side pocket of my pack, I went in to have breakfast. They had prepared a vegetarian spread including avocado tomato crostini, slices of cheese, hard boiled eggs, and a cake based on a recipe from the Camino, which they have both walked. I was able to eat two hard boiled eggs and three or four slices of the avocado tomato crostini and one slice of the cake. Strange how I just can’t work up an appetite.
I went back into my room and napped for a half hour since it was raining outside and Sim Jim said there was no rush to leave.
Eventually I got up, finished packing, said goodbye to One More, and Slim Jim and I headed out.
The night before when we’d been discussing the cold, One More had remembered that a friend gave her two home-knit toques, and she offered them to me; I picked the more colorful of the two. Slim Jim took some shots of me in the toque at Winding Stair Gap where he dropped me off.
Once I hit the trail, I had cookies to get rid of. The first couple of people I encountered I asked them if they would like some trail magic. They looked puzzled at first, but I let them reach their hand into that side pocket of my pack where I normally store my two-liter water sack, but had put the cookie bags in instead. They would pull out a little bag of chocolate chip cookies. They were of course delighted. Pretty soon my extra cookies were gone.
Hiking was not too strenuous but it was definitely cold and very windy. Luckily I had the toque and I had also pulled out both pairs of my gloves so my hands were nice and warm (the thicker pair had come on the trip by accident – a lucky accident). I was wearing both my fleece and my rain jacket. I only had about 10 miles to go to get to Wayah Gap Shelter. Still my spirits were somewhat low given the cold weather and also the lack of sleep, and the worrying about whether I really wanted to finish my hike. I suppose it’s natural that there will be times when I doubt whether this is really what I want to be doing. It is a lot of physical workout with not that much mental stimulation other than occasional conversation with others you are passing on the trail, or that you talk to it camp. Generally when the sun is out and it’s warm I feel pretty good about things but when it’s blustery and cold or rainy or when I haven’t had much sleep, I start to question things.
For lunch I had wraps with extra old cheddar cheese, the first cheddar I’ve eaten in 5 years. I have to say it was pretty good and it filled me up nicely.
I got to Wayah Bald which has a short stone tower and a 360° view of the mountains. I could definitely see snow on the sides of the mountains to the north. Ash, another older hiker I’d met earlier that day, was up there (somehow he had gotten ahead of me, probably by walking up the maintenance road rather than the trail) and we traded phones and took each other’s photo.
Once down at Wayah Shelter, I spent a long time looking for a flat tentsite but eventually did find one. Tent went up okay, still not the way it’s supposed to. But later that evening I met David from Oklahoma and he had the same model tent (Durston X-Mid Pro 2) and his was set up perfectly from what I could tell, although he also complained that it was a finicky tent to work with. he slept in there with his mid-sized dog.
I ate dinner on a sunny slope near where a young hiker, Brandon, had set up his tent. He was worried about camping so close to two bear hangs. The one closest to his tent had been done really poorly and I agreed it was going to be hard to sleep knowing a very appetizing bag of food was dangling easily within reach a few feet from his tent. Luckily his tent was one with curved pole sections, not a trekking pole tent, so we were easily able to move it to a better spot. We spent a fair bit of time talking about hiking. This was his first outdoor overnight experience, a five day circuit hike partly on the AT and partly on other trails. He seemed proud of having crushed 15-20 miles a day through rhe mountains. He still needed to do a bear hang so I helped him find one, and even offered to throw the rock over. After five failed tries I handed the rock and string to him and he landed it on the first try. I said goodnight and headed back to my tent.
It was starting to get cold. I took off my shoes and rain gear and climbed into my sleeping bag fully clothed (3 pairs sicks + pants below, t-shirt, thermal undershirt, shirt and fleece above) and journaled while charging.