Date: 2016-04-10
From: US 58

To: Wise Shelter
Miles today: 16.4
Weather: clear sky

Sorry for the long delay in updates. A lack of good signal and trail issues have been plaguing me lately. Anyway....Sunman and Suds picked me up early 7am at Trail Chef's house in Franklin and we enjoyed a nice drive back to Damascus. I started my hike with them and hadn't seen them in a while. They are great people. It was good to spend some time with them as most of my hike so far had been pretty much me and the trail. Sub and Suds dropped me off where I had hitched a ride on 58 about 16 trail miles from Damascus. They were going to go back to Damascus so they'd be a day or so behind. Assuming I would be able to resume my big mile days with my new shoes we kind of figured that would be the last time we'd see each other on the trail. I had I big climb up to the Greyson Highlands with my destination being Wise shelter. Getting a late start on the hike wasn't the best idea but that was how it went. I think it was around 11:30 am when I started up. The trail was very rocky with patches of snow still on the ground and muddy soggy trail where the snow had melted. Having taken a few days off at Trail Chef's house hadn't helped my trail legs and I thought about having only hiked 4 of the past 16 days or so. Most of the people I was around hiking were about 200 miles up the trail past me and there were some people now I had never met... and I wasn't in the best socializing mood... oh well.The day was sunny but colder than I had expected and the snow, soggy trail, rocks and poor mood made the day's hike one of the more challenging of the hike to date. I just kept trudging on trying to keep my feet dry.I made it to the first shelter and thought for a moment about just staying there but decided to press on. It was still light out when I made it to the Highlands and saw some Ponies. They were all busy eating and I couldn't coax them into looking up for a photo so just took some of them eating. The Highlands had a ton of rocks to go with their up and down terrain making the going slow. Having to watch where every step will go on the rocks is also very mentally taxing.As I was crossing the Highlands the sun was going down and I still had plenty of miles to go to get to the shelter. I thought about just tenting and calling it a day but didn't see any good camp sites. I put on my light and was ready for some night hiking. I thought I would be able to make it to the shelter 16.4 miles before dark but I obviously thought wrong! I hiked on in the dark having a couple miles left to go. My feet were hurting but not from the shoes so that was a silver lining in the dark clouds following me for the day. Abut 30 minutes from the shelter I felt a few rain drops hit my arms... great... it was not supposed to rain! Oh well... I couldn't go any faster so I just kept going to the shelter hoping it would hold off until I arrived. Thankfully it did.I arrived at the shelter and some people were still awake so that was good... one of the hikers Big Zero recognized me from Gooch Shelter and we took a few minutes to catch up before another hiker sushed us and we too went to sleep for the night.