Date: 2017-04-25
From: Roaring Fork Shelter

To: Hot Springs, NC
Miles today: 17.9
Weather: overcast clouds

A owl kindly acted as my alarm clock this morning, hooting a couple of minutes before 7. The rain was still coming down lightly, but I had stayed mostly dry overnight.Side note: I'm starting to come to the opinion that non-freestanding tents are not ideal... Or maybe I'm not doing it right. The tent spot I setup on last night (one of the last 3 available) was about 6in too short for my tent (which is particularly long), which resulted in the rain fly resting on the bug netting and transferring water to it. Every time a big fat rain drop would fall from a tree and hit the tent a little shower would ensure within the tent. This is the first time that's happened, but I've also had issues with the rain fly not being taught if there isn't enough width. Not a huge issue, but something to think about.Anyways, I packed up pretty quickly and hit the trail, eating a poptart and cinnamon bun on the trail. It rained/dripped on us all morning as we hiked through the dense fog. We hiked through the ghostly apperations of trees as they appeared from the mist and across another bald. Thankfully the posts bearing blazes were just close enough to be in view through the fog and we soon came to another shelter. The raindrops falling on the metal roof were audible even before the shelter was visible the fog was so dense.I took a short break at the shelter until Lookout arrived and then we cruised the 12mi into town. Honeybunz caught up with us and we may have gotten a little excited and basically ran down the last hill into town. We covered our 18mi for the day in 5hours 45min, including the couple of quick breaks we took, and it was only 115pm. The trail runs straight through the center of town (Hot Springs really only has one street) and the sidewalk has placks/blazes embedded into it periodically. We had agreed to meet at the Dollar General until everyone made it to town before getting food, so Lookout, Honeybunz, and I got frosty beverages at the gas station next door and sat on a shady section of trail and enjoyed our drinks. We hadn't booked lodging yet, so after about a half an hour the 3 of us decided that it would probably be a better idea if we just booked it on behalf of the group, rather than waiting for everyone to get to town (which was looking like it might be another couple hours). After calling a couple places and getting put on hold, we decided that it would just be quicker to walk down the street to them, so with Lookout watching the packs (and enjoying a beverage), Honeybunz and I headed into town. We got prices at the local motel before running into Tom and Matt (2 of Honeybunz's friends) who had booked a room at Creekside Court and were looking for hikers to split it with. Though adding the 2 of them would mean trying to fit 10 hikers in a room with 2 queen beds, we decided we could make it work and returned to grab our packs.As the sun was shining, a rare occurrence, the first order of business was laying our soaked gear out to dry, followed by showers. People eventually trickled in and settled in... Lipstick got another room because she wanted a real bed for the night and Kali got a room at a hostel, so we ended up with plenty of space for everyone.All showered and presentable (as much as hikers get anyways) we headed down to the Smoky Mountain Diner we had passed on our way into town. This place knows how to deal with hikers. So much food for so little money. I got a double cheeseburger with sweet potato fries and a slice of strawberry rhubarb pie. Everybody was super stuffed after dinner so we got some beer, wine, and cider from the gas station and headed back to our place to hangout. We were slowed down a little bit by the anti hiker barrier (a knee high concrete block wall) that had been placed around the gas station that we couldn't seem to lift our stiff legs high enough to step over, but managed to find a way around.When we got back we found that Hinds, Diesel, and LeftFoot had also gotten a room and so grabbed some chairs and hung out out outside their room. Silus went on an adventure to find a corkscrew, which was eventually successful. Diesel declared that it was unacceptable that such a large group, who had been hiking together so long, didn't have trail names yet and than anybody without a trail name would be forced to zero until they got one. The ensuing trail name party resulted in Matt becoming OnionWhisperer (Yun for short), Kelsey becoming Hils, Kali becoming The Pronator (Nate for short), Silus (formerly Missionary) becoming Pepper, and Tom (who was missing at the time, a reoccurring theme) becoming Waldo. As we watched the sunset on the hills around town we ran low on drinks and were a bit hungry, so we walked down to the Dollar General and picked up a few snacks (I also resupplied 4 days to make it to Erwin, TN), hit the gas station again for more drinks, and wandered back through the empty street of town to our place.Yun, Lookout, and Fireproof got a fire going and Lookout, Fireproof, LeftFoot, and I ended up staying up till midnight chatting about a bunch of things after everyone else had gone to bed. I ended up sharing a room with Not bad (who slept on the floor), Lookout, Yun, and Waldo.All and all it kinda felt like a zero even though we hiked 18 miles this morning. It's really fun to be hanging with a new group of people, they're all cool people, and it looks like we might be hiking with them for the next couple days.