Date: 2016-03-13
From: Little Laurel Shelter

To: Hogback Ridge Shelter
Miles today: 21.9
Weather: overcast clouds

It was raining when I woke up so I decided to go back to sleep and try again later. When I woke up the second time it was already getting late and the time change hadn't helped things. Knowing I had another long day which had more rain in the forecast so I packed up quickly and got moving. Mentally I was prepared for a horrendous day though I was hoping for the best. The wind was blowing pretty good, the ground was wet and there was a foggy mist in the air - but my feet were dry and that is a huge plus! They guy in the shelter had commented about taking a blue blazed trail around the ridge line that was exposed. I'm not one to examine all the minute details of the trail and know every bald, climb, gap, or elevations of all the climbs and such... but I do follow the white blazes and that is just what I do. Everyone hikes their own hikes... mine just follows the white blazes.. So... I get to the fork in the trail where the sign says - "Exposed Ridgeline Trail" in white with BAD WEATHER TRAIL in blue... Photo. I thought for a moment... what really constitutes bad weather? Then decided it was pretty irrelevant as I was going on the exposed ridgeline trail anyway... Initially there were a few big granite step climbs and such and of course... I thought.. hmmmm... that wasn't so bad... as the trail leveled out and became pretty smooth... then I hit another set of step climbs... again.. ok... I can deal with that... and then the rocks kept coming... climbing up and up over less defined steps and more like bolder hopping... The wind was blowing pretty hard... and I had flashbacks to going over Clingman's Dome... It was just par for the course with my hike... whether it be Clingman's Dome, Exposed Ridgelines or whatever... windy bad weather I think will just be the norm this hike... I have to admit I didn't get a photo of the sign on the southern end.. so when I got to the northern end of the split and there was another sign there... I just had to get a photo of it... I just loved the graffiti written on it too so I got a zoom up of that as well... The graffiti reads; "Frodo and Sam Did worse. You can do it." Of course I can I thought... I just did it... Shortly after completing the "Exposed Ridgeline" the sun came out and the weather became much nicer... of course it did!!!I made it to the Hogback Ridge Shelter somewhere between 10 and 11 pm and found Bootie and Major TP were there. As an added bonus... they had started a nice fire that was still burning. Though it wasn't really necessary as it wasn't very cold... it was VERY nice to sit by and dry out my sweaty shorts and shirt before getting in my sleeping bag. I threw a couple more logs on the fire to keep it going. One caught fire pretty quickly and lit up the area a little too much I thought... anyway... I set up my sleeping area as quietly as I could and hung up my food bag before going to sleep.During the night, I was woken by some shelter mice... they were a little annoying but with my food bag hanging on the bear cables - I wasn't overly concerned. Since I was already awake... and had to go... decided to go do #1 and put another log on the fire. It seemed the light from the fire scared the mice away a little and I was able to fall back asleep... this routine repeated a few times during the night... one of the drawbacks of trying to stay hydrated during the long days hike... excess fluid eventually comes out. So... the song for the night was "come on baby light my fire..." I'd wake up to do #1, mice would be at it, put a long on the fire, shelter gets a little lighter, mice shut up, and Papa Monkey gets back to sleep... oh well... Happy Trails...