Date: 2016-11-20
To: Campsite along the AT
Miles today: 12.0
Weather: overcast clouds

In the morning, my thermometer said it was 20 degrees, and the wind was still howling. I actually got out of my sleeping bag, changed out of my night clothes to my hiking clothes (a very quick change), and put my gloves on my hands instead of my feet. I had to take off my gloves to untie the food bag and to take down e tent. My fingers and my toes felt numb. I decided to carry a protein bar to eat later and start hiking right away to start warming up. Feeling returned to my fingers and toes as I started tout some miles between me and the campsite. I son passed the turn off to he shelter I had hoped to hike to the first night. It turned out the shelter was 3/10¢s of a mile off the trail; that is seldom a good idea. The wind kept up all day. There were great views. Because the trees up on the mountains were completely leafless, but I didn't stop and take in the views much because of the the gray skies and the wind. The wind provided the day¢s biggest challenge. It was relentless. Periodically the trail would lead me to a more protected side of the mountain, but for most of the day the wind blew strong.About 1:00 I came to the second shelter. It was right on the trail. There was a nice tenting area near the shelter. There was actually a rather large tent set up near the shelter with no sign of a hiker. The only thing I could think of is that it was set up for a trail maintenance crew who wasn't there yet.   I had seen that once before at a different spot on the trail. I took off my pack, laid it on the picnic table, and headed to the privy. As I sat in the privy the wind continued to howl. I heard the unmistakable sound of a tree coming down in the woods. It sounded very close. The thought flashed through my mind, ¢What if I die sitting on the toilet in the middle of this forest?¢ I guess there are worse ways to die, but I wasn't ready to go yet, and how long would it be before someone found me? I heard the tree come crashing down with a roar, and I was still Live on the toilet. I opened the door to see where it fell. The wind caught the door and banged it against the side of the privy. Now I was sitting in the toilet with the door wide open and I couldn't reach it to pull it closed without getting up off of the toilet. It didn't seem to matter since I was alone in the woods so first I looked for the tree. It was downhill about fifty feet from the privy. I could see that my pack was still safe on the picnic table. I finished my task and explored the area around the shelter. I decided, although there were about three hours of hiking light left, I would spend the afternoon here, enjoy the nice surroundings, and just make it a seven mile day. I walked around a bit and located a great tenting spot on a soft bed of moss. It was about 20 feet from the deserted tent. It would be a great spot to spend the night. I went back to the picnic table and read the shelter log while I ate lunch. I also kept trying to reposition myself to minimize the impact of the wind. The most recent entry was dated today, from a SOBO (southbound hiker). It seemed very strange, because I was hiking north and I hadn't met another hiker all morning. As I ate, I realized that staying here in the wind would not make for a very relaxing afternoon, so I might as well keep hiking. I finished my lunch of cheese and flatbread, packed up my stuff and headed back up the trail. As I walk passed the deserted tent again, heading back to the trail, a dog started barking from inside the tent. His human companion calmed him down, stuck his head out the doorway, and said, ¢How's it going?¢ The entire time I had been wandering passed the tent, eating my lunch, and observing a tree come crashing down about 50 feet away there was no noise or movement from the tent. Maybe they are both really heavy sleepers. Maybe they were huddled into the tent to stay out of the wind.I checked out the weather forecast on the weather app from the top of a mountain where I got enough cell signal to use my phone. I was curious how cold it was supposed to get and when the wind would stop. It said the low would be 25 degrees. That is down the mountain in the nearest little town. And it said the wind advisory was in effect until 7:00 pm. About 4:00 I began watching for a good tent site. By 4:30 I found a nice spot with a cleared, flat tent site and a nearby area with a fire ring formed by loose stones in a circle with a nearby rock for a seat. It was like a 4-star campsite on the AT scale. It was wooded but open with no undergrowth. That meant the wind was whipping through at about 30-35 mph. I decided to set up camp before dark, crawl into my sleeping bag and then get up at 7:30 to cook supper after the wind had died down. I hung my food bag away from the tent area and then tried to set up my tent. The challenge was laying down the ground cloth and setting up the tent without having it blow away. I pointed the narrow end of the tent into the wind. That helped a bit, but it was like raising a sail during a hurricane¢¦well, I have never raised a sail, and I have never been in a hurricane, but it was a significant challenge, and one that had to be completed with bare hands to get all of the pole tips into the grommets. I finally got the tent set up, with the rainfall and crawled into my cold sleeping bag, which soon be came toasty warm from my body heat. By 7:30 the wind was as strong as ever. In fact it blew all night long. I was warm in the tent, but the wind woke me up over and over again. It sounded like trying to sleep along an airport runway. The leaves were all gone from the trees, but the wind still created an enormous sound and it blue the leaves along the ground, smacking them into the walls of my tent. Again I had thoughts of being found crushed under a fallen tree. I thought I really should get out my pen and tablet and write a last note to my loved ones and to whoever would find my crushed body, but there was no way I was taking my hands out of the warm sleeping bag into the bitter cold air. So I went back to sleep. This time I wrapped my feet in my down jacket, so even they stayed warm all night.