Date: 2022-04-18
From: Russell Field Shelter

To: Silers Bald Shelter
Miles today: 14.7
Weather: overcast clouds

What a day. It poured down rain by the bucketful last night. I was so glad to be in the shelter and that it wasn¢t leaking on me. When I did wake up in the morning it was so foggy I couldn¢t see more than 30 feet out of the shelter. I really didn¢t want to get up but new I needed to. It was cold and still rainy. But I made it up and on the trail. The trail was just soup the whole day. I mean 6 inches of the squishiest cold mud. My shoes and feet were soaked in no time. I gave it my best shot to stay out of the mud but eventually I hit a point that it just didn¢t matter. The worst part about it was I never knew if I was going to slide forwards, backwards or just sink into the mud. Just crazy to be on the trail. I warmed up well enough in my Frogg Toggs. But I still got soaked. The Frogg Toggs are not waterproof as they advertise. If I needed more of a reason to know I should never buy something cheap and from Walmart. The pants had started to rip when I last wore them but then today I slipped and tore them from front to back and then out along my right side. The pants did their job though and kept the mud off of my legs. I only fell one time. I slipped and took a tumble off into the wet grass. I rolled into it and was perfectly fine. Just a little wetter if possible.I made it to Derrick Knob Shelter around noonish and found some people I knew. They were headed to Double Spring Gap Shelter. Which was further than I had planned but I was feeling good. So I pushed along with them. But when we made it to Silers Bald Shelter I knew I was done. It is only 1.7 miles further. But I had sat down and taken my pack off. I just couldn¢t push myself. I was so cold and wet to move on. A change of clothes and drying off made a real difference in my mood. Then food and a fire helped it even more.The only true downer for the day is that while drying my shoes out by the fire they got a little to close and melted a little bit of my left shoe. It¢s not too bad. I think I¢ll be okay in them. But it still frustrating to have only caught these a little over a week ago. Crazy to think I¢ve come over 100 miles in them so far.With thinking about how far I have come with including the Approach Trail to Springer Mountain I crossed my 200th mile today. The official 200th will be tomorrow at Clingmans Dome. Which is also the highest peak on the AT. It will be great to get up and over that. The joke is that after Clingmans it¢s all down hill from there. It¢s a bad joke considering we have hardly began to scratch the total amount of elevation gain we will see on the AT. There are a few people here at this shelter who say they want to get up at 4am and get to the top of Clingmans for the sunrise tomorrow. It will be beautiful if this rain will move out. Which it should. But it¢s also going to drop to 27 degrees tonight. So I¢m sleeping with my water filter and electronics to make sure they don¢t freeze.Well I do have an alarm set for 4am tomorrow. The hope will be to make the climb up the mountain in the dark and the cold to see the sunrise. I may hear the alarm and decide to just roll over but it would be really cool to make it there. I know this goes against my rule of not setting alarms but it¢s such a chance to see something incredible.