Date: 2015-05-18
From: Seeley-Woodworth Shelter

To: Maupin Field Shelter
Miles today: 20.4
Weather: light rain

I set my alarm for 6 knowing I had a long day of hiking but I disn't actually get up till much later. I stayed up reading too late and just didn't want to get up. If I disn't have to pee so bad I probably would still be laying there. I left camp about 730 I think. Much later than I wanted. Oh well. The hike in the am wasn't too bad. Pretty humid, it rained a bit last night. The sun popping out made the humidity worse. At about snack time I reached Priest Shelter. This shelter is right before Priest Mountian and it's become a tradition to confess your trail sins in the shelter log book. I read through some of them! Pretty interesting. One person wrote a cookie recipe, another wrote a song but most confessed sins. Such as not burying thier poop, ugh. Or forgetting to tip a waitress. I didn't write anything. But afterwards I thought about it and came up with a few.1. I fantasize about yellow blazing all the freaking time. Especially when I'm hot and going up hill. 2. I slack packed twice even though i think it's cheating but I still consider myself a purist. 3. I've thought inappropriate thoughts about some of my fellow hikers. What can I say I love all the facial hair. Lol!After you summit priest mountian it's a straight drop to the road. Around 5/6 miles. It's steep, long and hard. I met a southbounder coming up...said he's been at it for 6 miles. I told him he was just about to the top. He didn't believe me but he was just 5 minutes from the top. It was a hard climb down. I'm glad I didn't have to climb it. I was sweating like crazy just going down.I stopped and had lunch at Tye River. It was a great spot. While I ate I contemplated my next move. The next shelter was about 3 miles away, I could stop there for tonight. Or go on to the next, the one I had planned on originally. It was quite a ways away and it consisted of a 4 mile death climb. And I was running behind schedule because I left camp late. I couldn't decide.I packed up from lunch and started up. Road crossings alway mean up. I came to the trail crossing for the Mau-Har trail. This trail lead straight to the Maupin Field Shelter. It's a 3 mile blue blazed that is suppose to be much harder than the AT. I was sooooooooo tempted. At this point it was after 3 and I had another 7 miles to go still, 4 of them being a death climb. But I couldn't do it. I have to walk the white blazes. Plus I was expecting a bad climb for 4 miles...if the blue trail was harder I had no interest in that.I took a quick break at Harper's Creek and then started. It was a horrible climb. And part of what made it so bad was it was getting pretty late in the day, I was getting tired and hungry and I was worried about getting to camp before dark. The first 2 miles to Chimney Rocks went well. Then the next two over Three Ridges was a nightmare. I was so done and about threw a fit right there in the middle of the trail. But aside from screaming there's not much else I could do but walk. So I walked. Eventually I made it to the top. Then started on down. 2.5 miles to the shlter. The longest 2.5 miles of my life. It took forever. And of course a storm moved in and it started raining. The cool rain felt pretty good though and it wasn't hard enough for me to get soaked. Just a bit damp. I made it to the shelter about 730ish I threw up my tent quick while the rain let up. I washed and ate and crawled in my tent. It was about 830 and I just went to sleep. Such a long day. Only the fact that I didnt have to do a death climb first thing in the morning made me feel better.