Date: 2019-03-06
From: Standing Bear Hostel 

To: Roaring Fork Shelter 
Miles today: 15.5

AT day 18. 15.5 miles to Roaring Fork ShelterI left Newport at 8 am via a Lyft and got dropped off at Green Corner Road, AT mile 241.5. The same place I left the AT on Sunday to walk up to Standing Bear Hostel. It was a beautiful sunny day. The temperatures today (as measured by my watch that I had hanging off my pack) ranged from a low of 19 to a high of 32 in the sun. The trail starts off with a 5 mile climbs from the trailhead at 1836 feet to Snowbird Peak at 4200 feet. It¢s not a very hard climb. As I was ascending I started to notice small patches of snow. Then as I got higher there were entire hillsides covered with snow. I stopped to take some pictures in case the snow went away. Well it didn¢t. I had the pleasure of walking through beautiful snow covered forests most of the day. The snow was no more than a half an inch deep and it was perfect for walking on. The high winds of the past two days were gone so it was not too cold. How lucky am I!Snowbird Peak had nice views but the peak itself had an ugly building on top of it. I tried to send some videos to family but I didn¢t have a good T-Mobile cell signal. It seemed to take forever to hike the 9 miles to Max Patch from Snowbird Peak. A lot of ups and downs. Every climb seemed like it should be the one that leads your to the summit of Max Patch, but they didn¢t. There is a sign letting you know when you¢re half a mile away. There is a parking area nearby and I started seeing day hikers coming down from the summit. The trail is a total mucky slippery shoe sucking mess going up to the summit and also going down the other side. The trail north of Max Patch had slightly deeper snow and it got colder. I came to a wide rounded snow covered area with no trail markers and no obvious trail because the snow was deep enough to cover it up. I saw some footprints leading to the left that looked like they may be heading to a trail but something didn¢t look right. So I got out my Guthooks app and luckily the GPS was working. I was slightly off trail and had to backtrack following the arrow on the GPS. There still wasn¢t a discernible trail for about 200 yards. Eventually a defined trail appeared along with a white blaze. As I hiked the remaining miles to the Roaring Fork Shelter I kept hoping that it would be on one of the sunny snowless hillsides I could see to the east. No such luck. The area was covered with deeper snow than I¢d been hiking inThe shelter area is very nice and is supposed to have some nice ten pads.  I decided it would probably be warmer in my tent so I found a nice tent site tucked in with some Rhododendrons. I had to clear away the snow before I pitched my tent so the snow won¢t melt from my body heat and make a big puddle under the tent I took my food up to the shelter so I could cook on a table and socialize with 2 other hikers. When I finish eating I swirl water around in my pot and drink the liquid. Nancy calls me a garbage disposal but I don¢t want anything going to waste and it¢s a good way to clean up. Well that technique didn¢t work tonight because the food had frozen to the pot. POST HIKE NOTE: One of the hikers staying in the shelter was Stronghold aka Ronald Sanchez. He was a combat veteran dealing with many physical injuries and PTSD. His stories of trying to overcome his disabilities to inspire other disabled veterans was inspiring.  He was a strong hiker despite all of his physical injuries, he was basically a bionic man. He was the hiker that made the off trail tracks that I followed coming down from Max Patch. Apparently he hiked off the trail to dig a cat hole. It was several months later when I found out that he was the hiker murdered on the Appalachian Trail. Apparently he had gotten off the trail for several weeks and that is why he was so far behind me. Ironically one reason why I didn't want to stay in the shelter that night was because of an oddball young hiker who told some really bizarre stories.It¢s 8:50 now and it¢s 25 degrees in my tent. My fingers are too cold to tap the phone keyboard. I have to place my water filter and electronics in my sleeping bag to protect them from the cold. Time to pee and cozy up in my sleeping bag. I put on all my clothes and jackets to sleep in. I should have been toasty warm but I had a bad nights sleep because I kept waking up feeling cold. I thought that maybe taking off my rain pants would allow more heat to escape into the sleeping bag to keep it warmer. This seemed to help. I also tried sleeping on my back to spread my body heat evenly. I think I got cold because I was camping on frozen ground and my inflatable pad (Thermarest xTherm) wasn¢t up to the task. It has one of the highest R-values of any lightweight pad. I had to get up to pee several times. The first time I tried to pee in a designated pee bladder using a collapsible funnel to direct the flow. I  was worried that I was going to spill during the process so I won¢t use that method again. The other 3 times I had to suck it up and go outside in the snow. I woke up for the last time at 4:45. I decided to stay up and try to thaw out my frozen socks, shoes, breakfast and water bottle by placing them in a plastic bag and putting them in my sleeping bag. It¢s now 5:22 and I can hear the people in the shelter talking. The forecasted temperature low for this morning was 18 degrees. I¢m going to start packing up soon so I can leave at first light. I need to hike 18 miles to Hot Springs today. Happy hiking, Silver Streak