Date: 2019-03-13
From: Piped spring mile 356.6

To: Stan Murray Shelter 
Miles today: 18.5

Oops I Went 3.4 miles South!Stan Murray Shelter 384.1AT day 25The day started off great. The sun was shining and the hiking was easy. I was flying up and down all of the hills. After about 3 hours I came to an overlook. I took a video at 10:45 for the family of the pretty view of Roan Mountain. Then I took off hiking again thoroughly enjoying myself. After around a hour I saw a hiker coming down the hill. I asked him if he was going south, he said no I¢m going north. I told him that he was going the wrong way. He said no you¢re going the wrong way. We checked our GPS map and sure enough I was going south. Oh expletive expletive expletive. I wasn¢t thinking straight and thought that maybe I was hiking all day the wrong way. 3 hours of wrong way on easy terrain would have been about 9 miles that I¢d have to hike back just to get where I started. The other hiker was a young German and I asked him if he was a fast hiker. He said he was so I was going to let him go first  After 4 steps I knew he wasn¢t Silver Streak fast so I passed him and took off like a crazy man driven by anger at my stupid mistake. Eventually my brain became rational and I realized where I made my mistake.Post trail note: The young German hiker was actually French Canadian and is known by the trail name T-Rex. I met up with him and his hiking partner Hawk in Damascus. I hiked with him for a while just past the Graysen Highlands and found out that he is a very fast hiker.I got back to the overlook at 1:10. I checked my GPS app and calculated that I¢d walked 3.4 miles south which meant a 6.8 mile round trip that don¢t count as AT miles. I was still pissed off at myself. If you think that was dumb, well I left the overlook and saw 2 trails and only one had a white blaze  So I took that one. After about 2 minutes I realized I had made the same mistake. Angry and now paranoid about getting lost I took off for Roan Mountain. Roan Mountain¢s elevation is 6500 feet. It¢s a long climb to the top but it¢s well graded with switchbacks to make it easier. As I approached the summit a cold wind started blowing. Many sections of the trail were covered with thick sheets of ice. Luckily there were ways around it. I had just sent my ice spikes home. I wanted to camp as low in elevation as possible. The Stan Murray Shelter is 5043 feet. It was 7 o¢clock when I got there and I was happy that no one else was there. The wind was howling at least 20 mph with higher gusts. There was a tarp in the shelter that I rigged up but it only covered 34 ths of the opening. I had to weigh the bottom of the tarp with rocks. I found 2 old abandoned nonfunctional fire pits and used those rocks. It¢s now dark and no one else was coming so I set up my freestanding Duplex tent inside the shelter behind the tarp.  This is frowned upon but I saw it as the only way of staying somewhat warm. All night long I¢d be woken up by wind gusts rattling the tarp. I was concerned that the tarp would fail and then my tent would fall over. I¢m still alive so I survived the night. I actually hiked 25.3 miles today. Happy hiking, Silver Streak