Date: 2017-09-10
From: Angels Rest Hostel

To: Wapiti shelter 
Miles today: 18.8
Weather: fog

I got up this morning at 6 a.m. and made coffee. Wild drinking my first cup, I scrounge around the hiker kitchen and found leftover Aunt Jemima waffle mix, the rest of the ingredients in the waffle recipe, & a waffle iron. I mixed a batch of waffle batter, and I cooked myself a batch of for waffles and smothered them with Aunt Jemima syrup. Then I SAT and ate them. What is Lee and Stewart had just arrived in the common area and I pointed out the coffee and better. Stuart had a cup of coffee and Wesley had some waffles as well. Then we all finished packing and around 8 a.m. got shuttle service back to trailhead.Yesterday Stewart had evidently hiked a mile further than Wesleyan die before he got off the trail at the less traveled cross Avenue trailhead. So that was where he started this morning. Wesleyan I, on the other hand, we're taking back to the 100 trailhead. Former hiker and hostile assistant "rabbit" was our driver. Picture. Yesterday we had also met hiker and hostile assistant " Sartec" (search and rescue technician), but he was not up yet this morning.It was cool and overcast when we started. There was even a significant amount of fog around ground level. I remember yesterday morning that we had started out above the clouds, & I realized that right now we were probably simply be nice or in them. So, I figured it would remain overcast for us until either the sunburned off the clouds as it had done while we were hiking downhill yesterday, or we hiked above them. The initial morning hike was 2200 feet of climbing, over the course of 3.5 miles. At first this was over asset of relatively gentle switch backs, but then it got steeper for the last mile.Around 9 a.m. I could small brakes in the trees that I was no above most of the clouds and sunlight was casting shadows on the trail. By about 9:30 I was near the top of the climb, and I heard Wesley's voice. He told me that the view was worth it, a couple minutes walk to my right. So I followed the blue arrow and came to a boulder. At this viewpoint, I could see down into the valley and observed that most of the clouds had disappeared, though some remained. Picture. I think was Lee had been on top of a boulder above my location when I had heard him, and I think he was describing a different view than the one from which I took pictures. However, I could not locate a trail to the point from which is voice head originated. So I continued hiking after I got back to the trail.About 945, I came to the actual top of the climb, & I reached viewpoint from which I took some more pictures of beautiful scenery to the south.I caught up to Wesley at about 11 a.m. As he was taking a break to fix his backpack. He said he had just torn his puffy jacket again. I passed him and continued hiking. We both arrived at the doc's knob shelter about 11:45, and we stopped for lunch. We were back on the trail at 12:15.About 130 I caught up to Wesley who was talking to Stewart, who was on a rock on the side of the trail, eating his lunch. We chatted there for a little while, and then we continued hiking. At about 2:45, I came to a nice view to the southeast, & I took a couple pictures. Otherwise the rest of the day was mostly uneventful hiking on relatively easy terrain. I arrived at the Wapiti shelter about 345pm. I got water so that I would have 4 full leaders for the evening and tomorrow morning. And we had an ordinary evening.Tomorrow we would take to root 608 in order to go to the lickskillet hostel, where we would shelter from the approaching tropical storm or hurricane or whatever it would be by the time its effects hit the area around southern Virginia. I took a couple screenshots of my weather radar application, which show the magnitude and scope of wind and precipitation associated with this storm. Pictures.