Date: 2014-04-27
From: Standing Indian Mountain

To: Long Branch Shelter
Miles today: 14.7
Weather: clear sky

   So I saw two meteors last night! Ben only saw the one better one. It was a nice surprise. We stayed up until just after 11 looking at the stars and talking some. He called over to me in the morning to check out the sunrise from my tent which was nice of course too but some trees were right in front of the sun itself for me. Still nice.    We hiked our first four miles in an hour because they were straight down the mountain. It was fairly flat for awhile and it actually hurt the back of my knee a lot. Surprising how I'd actually want some change in elevation. We took a little break at the bottom and Ben got us water. There was a group of weekenders there with two dogs that we chatted with. An older man named Papa Smurf (he looked just like him) was there for a bit too and had me put a bandage on the back of his hand since he scraped the back of it. Hiking on from there wasn't so bad. We stumbled across this short trail off to the side that had an amazing view. If it wasn't so hot out, we would've stayed longer. Beautiful trees around there too with little white flowers on them. We were considering staying at Betty Creek Gap after 10 miles but we felt good from an easy day. My feet were starting to feel it though. But tomorrow is a 50% chance of rain and I wanted to go up Albert Mountain fire tower while it was a nice clear day. I might be regretting that because of how my feet feel now but I'm fairly certain it was worth it.    The climb up the mountain was insane. From the road at the start of 2.5 uphill miles, it was tough and then got really pretty so I didn't mind it as much. There was water dripping along the side of the rocks on the trail that were covered in colorful moss. Really cool to see. After that it got a little tougher and soon the insanity started. Wooden stairs straight uphill that turned into rocks and back into stairs and back to huge rocks. Could've used hand-over-hand climbing at some parts. I eventually caught up with Ben at the top where the fire tower was. The view was gorgeous! I was filming and came up to him where he pointed to the side of the staircase up the fire tower where it said "AT 100 m"! I totally forgot that was there! Such an awesome feeling and little milestone to make it 100 miles. We stayed up there for quite a while. Couldn't get fully to the top of the tower because it was locked but we went as far as we could and took lots of photos.    The next 2.5 miles to the shelter was easy and mostly flat or downhill. I was really ready to get there. It's a newer one built in 2012 so it's pretty nice. We're staying up top with three people below us. No sign of any previous friends today which is crazy. Really we've only seen Joe the past couple days but no one else for awhile now. Ben found a baby mouse after we settled in so we're trying to take care of her. He has her in a sock now so hopefully she makes it through the night. We should be getting into Franklin tomorrow so we can help her better then and look up what we should do. I made dinner after that and it was the best I've had yet because I cut up some ramps and put the leaves in with my quinoa, soy chunks, red beans, tomatoes, nutritional yeast, and Italian seasoning. So needed at the end of this long day. There's a cute dog here too with one guy. Her name is Caroline and she has such pretty eyes and floppy ears!   There was a 30% chance of rain tonight and it actually just started raining at 830 here so I'm glad we set up in the shelter. Tomorrow, we're going to try to get into town by a shuttle at 9 or 11 and hopefully it doesn't rain before then. And I believe we are zeroing the day after to celebrate my birthday early since we'll be in a town. I'm excited about it since there's a vegan restaurant! Also excited just to rest my body for awhile. No more big days like that. Gotta take care of myself! But it's all working out well so far and I'm happy. Time to get some good rest I hope! Or at least better than last night. Fingers crossed.