Date: 2018-04-11
From: Roan High Knob Shelter

To: Mountain Harbor Hostel
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: clear sky

After a cold night, I woke up with my sleeping bag upside down and my puffy down jacket wrapped up around me. It's crucial for me to keep my nose and mouth outside of my sleeping bag to get the moisture away and luckily I had. However, all night I tossed and turned in the cold. I will admit though it wasn't the coldest I have been. I have my base layer on, a t-shirt, a fleece then I drape my down jacket over me as a secondary blanket of sorts. On my lower body I have my base layer, underwear and pants on and I top off my look with socks and a hat on. Seems warm right? Maybe I just sleep cold. I got a later start beginning my hike around 830. I hiked two miles to a parking lot where they had a toilet! It's good because the ground was completely frozen and I couldn't dig a hole! From there I continued hiking as the temperatures rose. By midday, it was probably 60 degrees in the sun not counting the wind blowing probably making it more like 50 at the highest. Warmer than most days but still cold after dealing with the weather for the past week. I'm just ready for the warm weather. Around 7 miles into the day I stopped with soothe and a few other hikers at this place called the barn. It's an old farm barn that was donated to become a shelter. It rests on nice Green Meadows with a beautiful view into the valley. Here I stopped for an early lunch and soaked in the sun's warmth. Would have been an awesome place to stay!I hiked for the greater part of the afternoon leap frogging soothe and in the vicinity of honey bun, stoic and shiver. We all enjoyed the outstanding views from atop Big Hump mountain and a few other balds. Seems to be a thing down south-- bald top mountains. Did I mention a few days ago we went over Big Butt Mountain? There was even a Big Butt Bypass trail to skip the mountain! We all got a kick out of that!The mountains today reminded me of the Franconia Ridge Trail in NH. You can see the path you take ahead and all around you is a treeless peak... Minus the rocks. It was cool. We diverted our plan a little and we all opted to stop at a hostel 0.5mi west of a gap we hit around mile 15. They had hot food! I got a Philly cheese steak and we all ended up deciding to stay in the vicinity of the hostel for their infamous all-you-can-eat (AYCE in hiker terms) breakfast. We had heard such great things! I camped on site with Wu Tang while Soothe stayed inside the hostel and the others walked back to the trail and camped for free there. My $10 camping fee got me a shower and dry wood for a fire so I took it! At 8am tomorrow I plan on devouring food then pushing 20 miles. We have about 75 miles until Damascus, VA and I plan on pushing 3 20 mile days or so while the weather continues to be nice then hiking 15 or so into Damascus on Sunday in the rain for a nearo and a zero to officially hit the 25% mark and treat myself at a B&B. So pumped! Checkout some of my photos from today's hike as soon as I can upload them! P.S. my Facebook post had originally said 130 miles to Damascus. Again, how did I pass AP Calc? It was about 160 and now it's 75ish. And speaking of throwbacks to NH. I saw a chip in the paint of the bathroom that looked a lot like the state of NH! Super cool haha