Date: 2018-06-08
From: Cross Jennings Creek

To: Thunder Hill Shelter
Miles today: 14.0
Weather: broken clouds

Last night the river was soothing to listen to. There were plenty of bugs trying to get into the tent. I was afraid of letting them all in after I went to the bathroom.  Only a few got in but I forced them back out of the tent. I woke up late after not sleeping from midnight to 2 am. Stealth was by the river getting his French press and grider ready. I pulled down my bag and made high protein oatmeal by the river. Scissors came down to take a quick dip before she started trekking today. Stealth shared his French press coffee with me. It was the best coffee I had on the trail. We packed up our things and headed off.We had 4 gradual miles to the first shelter of the day. I talked to Pretzel for a little bit while getting water. She had worked for IBM in their software transition department. I mentioned I worked as a software consultant and could relate to her work. The Bryant shelter was well architected and had a few floors for sleeping. Scissors showed up and we hung around for a little while prepping for a 2300 foot climb over 5 miles. The climb seemed to go on forever like I was in Georgia again. It just kept going up and up. On the bright side my ankle was feeling better on the climb. After about 2 hours I met up with Kazi again. She had been having a day with her new shoes. The outfitter had told her that the shoes were not zero drop when they actually were. It was causing more strain on her calves than usual. The shoes were also giving her new blisters on her heels and toes. She mentioned that the outfitter only tried to sell her the most expensive shoes. These little outfitters are not like REI, once you buy it you're pretty much stuck with it. We pushed onto the next shelter but didn't stop. I wanted to have lunch at Black Rock overlook since we hiked up so much. Black Rock had a good view of the valley below. I made another bagel, avocado, cheese, and black forest ham sandwich. The ham had been keeping well. It's crazy to think of how much preservatives are in it to keep it that way. Kazi had bagels and peanut butter. Theo ate a whole summer sausage. He was one happy pup!  We pushed on from Black Rock on another 1000 foot climb to Apple Orchard mountain. At the top was a large Federal Aviation Tower. It looked like a giant soccer ball on top of the mountain. When we arrived a group of hikers were hanging out by it. They were eating pizza and drinking PBR! A trail angel had brought food up the mountain. I gladly accepted all extra calories. The trail angels had a baby with them and were feeding him lots of milk. After hanging out for a bit we headed off to the shelter. We passed the guillotine which was a huge rock suspended in mid air my two cliff edges. It looked as if it could fall at any time. We arrived at the thunder hill shelter and considered hiking 3 miles more, but the camping spots were beautiful. There were flowering rhododendron all around. It looked like a fairy forest. A small spring bubbled with refreshing water right next to the site. Not to mention it had a bear box which I hadn't seen in a few hundred miles. It was not a place to pass up. The only thing wrong was that there were tons of nats flying around my head. They were the biting kind too. I setup and made dinner of knorr asian sides with spam. Every 30 seconds I blew the nats away while cooking and eating.  It started thundering and the shelter name thunder hill didn't disappoint. We hung out in the shelter while it rained. At hiker midnight I made my way back to the tent. The nats had seemed to disappear too. They knew the rain was coming.  Tonight I'm listening to thunder on thunder hill while the rain is tapping my tent.