Date: 2017-05-11
From: Winding Stair Gap/Franklin, NC

To: Cold Spring Shelter
Miles today: 15.8

Day 10Thursday, May 11, 2017 Winding Stair Gap/Franklin, NC (109.8) to Cold Spring Shelter (125.6)Miles: 15.8 miles in 8.5 hours2017 AT trip miles: 125.6Total AT miles to date: 1419.7Weather: Sunny, very hot, 60s to 70sDinner: Sundried tomato and pine nut couscousHikers: Waldo, Bree, Mike, Jeffry, Robbie, Harley, Lewis, and four othersMy lightweight Therm-o-rest NeoAir sleeping pad is made of material that crunches every time you roll over it and/or roll it up in the morning. My husband Sam¢s Italian grandparents had plastic covered sofas. What do these two things have in common? My bed at the Haven Budget Inn. The bed had a plastic covered mattress. It was noisy, surprisingly hot and just plain weird.After surviving that experience, we headed over to the Kountry Kitchen for breakfast and I had the Best. Biscuit. Ever. I bought two more to pack for lunch today.Our little group took the $3 county shuttle back to our various trailheads¢Bree, Mike and Harley headed back to Rock Gap, 3.5-miles up trail, and I expected to see them catch up to me¢which they did¢at the burnt Wayah Tower mid-afternoon. Waldo, three other hikers and I started at Winding Stair Gap around 9:30. All of us, plus some, made it to the same Cold Spring Shelter tonight. Three of us are tenting .1 mile away from the shelter where the rest of the group is staying. They have the water, but we have the view. The hike today seemed tougher, perhaps partly due to all the fat relaxing we did at the brewery. Or because we had a 4.6 mile continuous climb to 5014¢ Siler Bald, immediately followed by another 4.3 mile climb to 5342¢ Wayah Bald. These elevations again rival the Whites in New Hampshire. The afternoon was hot and the black flies seemed to be out and about.The highlight of today was the stone Wayah Tower which is even emblazoned with a white AT rectangle (meaning its on the trail and we should go up it). An unintentional highlight was the recently burned fire tower and surrounding forest. Charred timbers showed that the tower formerly included a wooden roof and the informational vista signage was nothing but melted fiberglass. But boy did those white blazes glow on the blackened tree trunks.Admittedly, I succumbed to a lot of Podcasts today. Rather than taking away from the experience of walking for hours¢walking for hours up a seemingly endless mountain¢I find instead that listening to Podcasts adds a layer to my experience. My favorite is The Moth. Around Mile 10 or so, I was listening to a story by musician Suzanne Vega. Hearing her story brought back memories of my first favorite song of hers ¢The Soldier and the Queen.¢ I used to listen to the song over and over and over again. Which shows just how committed I was to repeatedly playing it. It was on a cassette tape and in those days, if you wanted to replay a song, you had to physically rewind the tape, attempt to gauge just the right place to stop and hope it was the start of the song. Rewind. Stop. Forward. Stop. Rewind. Stop.My, but we've come a long way making it so much easier to get those ear worms stuck in that never ending playlist in our heads. And that is one reason why I've been listening to Podcasts over music thus far.