Date: 2009-03-21
From: Bly Gap, NORTH CAROLINA!! 

To: Carter Gap Shelter
Miles today: 15.4
Weather: broken clouds

Cell Good ,OG notes: We woke up with the wind blowing up the valley we were in. It was so cold we decided to pack up and eat breakfast at the next shelter. I packed my gloves deep in my pack and immediatly regretted it, luckily C6 needed her heavy gloves and her lighter ones fit me.North Carolina greets north bound AT hikers with a killer climb for the first 4 miles. We started at 3750 feet elevation and reached 4750 ft 3 miles later. We decided that we really like being near a shelter at night instead of remote campsites. We also decided to go to the shelter 15 miles down the trail, so we abused ourselves and hiked 15 miles. We determined it is too soon in the hike to do that many miles we both hurt from it. Also by going that long we are the last ones to get to the shelter and that makes tent site selection difficult. We'll wait a while longer before we go that distance. C6 notes - Cold day today, but still sunny. The cold makes it hard to get out of the warm sleeping bag in the morning and pack our stuff. But the cold also makes hiking comfortable...as long as we're moving. When we stop, however, we can't stay still for very long or we become uncomfortably cold. We packed up as quickly as we could in the cold at Bly Gap. There was a bitterly cold Easterly wind...brrr. I'm guessing it was probably in the 50's as we hiked today because we didn't see our breath until the sun started going down. When the sun started going down, the temperature dropped very fast.We were thrilled to see "Red Leg" at the shelter this evening. We spent some time visiting with him, and are happy to know we plan to be in the same places for the next two nights. We'll be taking a "0" day (not hike at all) on Tuesday in Franklin, and Red Leg plans to keep moving, so we may not see him again after that. I really like Red Leg. I'm so happy we saw him tonight, and I'm glad we have a couple more evenings. He's such a good guy, and I so enjoy his sense of humor.Today's hiking was a mixture of easy and hard. The last 3.5 miles was hard, for two reasons. There were a LOT of tree roots sticking up for about 2 miles. That left the soles of my feet burning. No blisters, but achy feet. Then the last 1.5 miles was fairly steep uphill. Glad to be off my feet and in my warm sleeing bag.I've been thinking about when I wrote about being in our tent in the rain before it got dark and having to pee, and being afraid of the cold and rain. I don't remember if I followed up on that night. My bladder held out until the middle of the night. What happened, actually, was that I finally relaxed as I realized I was warm and safe. And when I relaxed, I didn't feel the need to pee so urgently, so I fell asleep. It didn't stop raining that night, but with my rain gear on I didn't get too wet when I got out to pee in the middle of the night.This morning I had my first experience with needing to dig a "cat hole." That's when you have to poop, but there's no privy (outhouse, latrine, biffy) nearby. You dig a hole in the dirt about 6" deep, do your business in the hole, then cover it with dirt. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.By the way, the privy's so far have been okay. Some odd things though - the privy at Gooch Shelter is situated above the walkway to the water source. When we went to get water, we discovered you could see the seat in the privy...so no privacy there. The privy at Trey Mountain Shelter is positiond such that when you go to sit down, the shelter has a clear view. It's ok when you're actually sitting down, but you have to be careful in the sitting and rising. The last one I used today seems to be open toward the trail and where people would pitch their tents. Sometimes the woods is a better option!There are a lot of people where we are tonight, but it's too cold to socialize. I'm glad we were able to visit with Red Leg for a while. Time to go to sleep now (9:30pm). Hiker's Midnight" is when darkness falls...so it's well past my midnight now and OG's been asleep for a while. Good night!Old Goat & Check Six