Date: 2017-12-15
From: Nantahala Outdoors Center

To: Wayah Shelter
Miles today: 16.6
Weather: clear sky

So much I want to write, but it's cold. I'll try to remember to type it in my phone in my sleeping bag and then add it when I post this.(I did remember to type an entry in my phone.)Got a late start. A guy from a group doing Wilderness First Responder training at the NOC gave me an apple!The forecast for today was partly sunny, but that never really happened. It was grey and windy until sunset.The big thing today was dogs! After seeing blood spots on the snow of the trail for a few miles, I came upon a pair of hounds that had made a nest in the leaves by the trail. One was super playful and friendly, although really, really skinny. The other was clearly the source of the blood drops- cuts on two of its feet and ankles and it was favoring one of its back legs, too. They were clearly hunting dogs- they had what looked like radio collars. The procedure everyone has heard of out here for if you find hunting hounds while hiking, is you leave them alone because their people are around someplace tracking them. But this one was hurt, and shivering, and lying on the side of the trail rather than hunting... I couldn't just leave her. I called the phone numbers on their collars until somebody picked up. I said I could get the dogs to follow me down to Burningtown Gap, and he said he'd meet me there to get the dogs. The hurt one (Abby) was reluctant to move until I attached my bear bag line to her collar and tugged and encouraged her a little, but she came along pretty well after that. Once she got moving and warmed up a little she kept up with me just fine. Her extremely skinny but happy friend (Bandit Buck, according to his collar) ran ahead, and behind, and found sticks in the snow... I could see all his ribs, but I didn't worry too much after I saw his behavior. He was happy. A SOBO called Boiling Frog caught up and helped me keep an eye on them.I was worried about the dogs- the locals around here don't always have a ton of money, and dogs are seen as tools more than pets, and there are people that would take their injured dog and kill it rather than get medical treatment. When I met the guys who came to get the dogs at the Gap, though, they seemed glad to see the dogs and asked if I wanted any money for bringing them on down. I said I just wanted the dogs to be okay, and they said they'd take them home and get them a meal and a warm bed... so at the very least they knew the right thing to say to make me not worry. At that point I was so, so cold I really didn't want to hang around and chat too much anyway. I'd had to take my hands out of my gloves to make the phone calls when I found the dogs, and my hands had never really gotten warm again. I had sweated in my gloves earlier in the day, and when I was walking with the dogs I kept having to keep one hand, gloveless, in my armpit while the other held the bear line and my trekking poles, then switching hands because even in my gloves the hand holding things wasn't staying warm... in Burningtown Gap I got my hot hands out that I'd been saving for later since Damascus and put them in my gloves. By the time Boiling Frog and I got hiking again, it hurt for my fingers to warm back up. Once I had my hands back to a normal temperature, the hand warmers were amazingly comfortable and Boiling Frog and I hiked the last three and a half miles to the shelter together quickly enough to stay warm.There are people here! Three guys out for the weekend who got a fire going. It's so nice to have fire and company, especially in the cold. My water bottle was starting to freeze by the time we got here, not long after sunset. It has to have been in the 20s for it to freeze while jostling in my pack.The sun did finally come out for sunset, though, and there were some great colors in the sky. It felt good to get a solid day of hiking in, even with snow and elevation gain. There are people here and I have a hot nalgene in my sleeping bag and I put my hand warmers in my socks so my feet are nice and toasty. Being out here is incredible.