Date: 2012-04-22
From: Somewhere in the woods

To: Abingdon Gap Shelter
Miles today: 24.4
Weather: light rain

Last night it rained a few times and the owls were making noises right above us all night but I still got a good night¢s sleep. We woke up at around 6:00am and packed up all our wet gear then headed to the next shelter two miles up the trail to eat breakfast. It was really foggy, cold and windy this morning and it looked like it was going to be that way all day so we decided not to do the 24 miles we had planned on doing. We got to the shelter and found that it was still full with last night¢s hikers. They were all cold and did not want to get out of their sleeping bags. We talked to them for a while and they said that it was to be ugly all day and even snow tonight into tomorrow morning. We ate our breakfast and continued on to the next shelter, Big Sky and Slim were really sluggish this morning because they hate the cold weather so I decided to go ahead of them and meet them at the next shelter and take a break. It was 6.8 miles to the next shelter and I got there in about two hours and found that Dundee was there and once again more hikers trying to stay warm from last night. Soon after Big Sky and Slim showed up, we all ate some snacks and talked to the other hikers. Big Sky was still very cold so she decided to cook one of her suppers to try and warm up and to give her more energy. After our snack break we headed up the trail to the next shelter, I once again went ahead so I could get to the shelter first and take a longer break. I find that I need longer breaks to rest my body and Big Sky does not like to stop so this system seems to work for us. The next shelter was 7.6 miles up the trail and the terrain was very easy between the two shelters. Along the trail I came upon some trail magic and found that there was one soda left - I took it and drank it feeling a little guilty because I took the last one...I hate finding empty trail magic containers. The trail then crossed over a paved road then it entered some cattle pastures and sure enough i was soon hiking among dairy cows. I walked up to them to take some pictures but they all turned away and wanted nothing to do with a smelly wet hiker...so I only got a picture of their rear ends. I got to the shelter in about two and a half hours and was still feeling good, even after doing 16 miles in cold, wet and windy weather. It was only 2:00pm and it was too early to stay at this shelter because we would freeze just sitting around waiting for darkness. About 20 minutes later Big Sky and Slim showed up and they both were feeling warmer and better so we decided to push on to the next shelter and do a 24 mile day.   We stayed together for the rest of the day because by then we slowed down to a crawl. There was three camps sites shown on the guide book and we decided to stop at each one and see how we all felt and was going to stop at one of them if one of us wanted to stop. We ended up passing all the camp sites and soon arrived at the shelter at around 6:00pm. Dundee was the only one there so we claimed three spots in the five person shelter. The wind was not as bad in the shelter but it was still foggy, damp and the temps had dropped into the 30s so we quickly got out of our wet cloths and into our dry warm cloths. We ate in a hurry and all jumped into our sleeping bags by 7:30pm. Three other hikers Scout, Wonder and Doc showed up and we made more room in the shelter for them; it was supposed to hold five hikers but we had seven in it tonight. We did not mind being stuffed inside the shelter because we needed as much body warmth as we could get. Well my thumbs are now frozen so its time for bed...night all!