Date: 2013-03-24
From: Siler Bald Shelter

To: Cold Spring Shelter
Miles today: 12.1
Weather: light rain

Sunday morning, March 24 2013, I left the Siler Bald Shelter at 8:35 AM and reached the AT at 8:53, turning north. I was a bit surprised to see, at 9:15 AM, a ¢Siler Bald Shelter¢ sign, but remembered that it is on a loop trail: I¢d approached the shelter from the south end of the loop, and if I¢d continued past it this morning would have met the AT here, at the loop¢s north end. At 10:06 one of the young party¢s members, Cinnamon, asked me to photograph him at Siler Bald ¢ I did, but the mist and overcast dissuaded me from bothering with my own photo.        Cinnamon was having heel trouble, apparently duct-taping pieces of cloth padding to his right heel, so I passed him now and then, but we arrived pretty much together at the old stone Wayah Bald Fire Tower, where we took some photos and had lunch. My stop was from 12:50 to 1:15 PM. I reached the Wayah Bald Shelter about 2:00 PM, just stopping to say hello to a few fellows who were staying there. There was some trail confusion; a ¢shelter¢ sign appeared at 1:43, then another about 2:00! I was wool-gathering at one point when the trail took a sharp V-turn, and I couldn¢t recall which leg I¢d come down! Neither, by my compass, was exactly north, but both were sort-of north. I was rather upset to come to that ¢shelter¢ sign again... but another hiker confirmed that it was a different sign (though both for Wayah Bald!). He¢d been confused too. Well, it was a pleasant, smooth and relatively rock-free path, so no harm was done. I actually did not backtrack after all, and guessed correctly about the leg of the V that constituted progress!        Cinnamon and I reached Burningtown Gap at 3:50 PM, but he was moving fast, and when I reached Cold Spring Shelter at 4:33 he was among the group of six twenty-somethings who filled it. It included Rooster and Tallulah (the new trail name of one of the Maine boys with whom I¢d shared Stover on our first night out).        About an hour later, after one false start on sloping ground among other tenters just north of the shelter on the west side of the trail, I erected the tarp on a ridge east of the trail, uphill from a ¢Camping¢ sign. (While the convenient west-side camping area held several tents, I was alone up on the high, windy hill.) After a quick freeze-dried dinner prepared down at the shelter, I hustled back to my own little camp and crawled in. Surprised to find cell service, I called my wife from inside the tarp, just as rain began.        Ah, if rain were the only problem! It turned very cold that night, and we had several inches of snow when I arose about 7:15 AM. During the night, I¢d noticed that it had become increasingly difficult to raise my feet (the left one in the Achilles ¢night splint,¢ of course) to roll over. In the morning I realized why: I was also lifting a couple of pounds of snow! I was glad I¢d been doing my back-stretch routine, with its several ab-strengthening exercises, because the abs got a workout that night.        Immediately a major problem appeared: I couldn¢t get my food bag down! I¢d used the ¢Pacific Crest Trail¢ system that doesn¢t tie the rope to a tree, so cutting the food down wasn¢t an option. The knots were frozen, and in the ~10 degree F air temperature my fingers weren¢t nimble enough to pick them apart. I truly feared having to leave four days¢ food hanging in the air. Eventually, enough patient picking pulled the knot apart and down came the bag. The same issue recurred with the tarp-to-tree ropes, but with the same eventual resolution. My water bottles were frozen solid, but after packing up I obtained about 12 L from the shelter¢s spring; that would last the day! I was not at all unhappy to leave that Cold Spring site at 9:10 AM. Tough night ¢ I took two photos of the morning tarp.