Date: 2017-10-22
From: Six-sevenths camp

To: Little Laurel shelter
Miles today: 20.9
Weather: overcast clouds

One of the disquieting aspects of hiking the AT at this time of year has been the number of lost and starving hunting dogs we've encountered.Pan had found one such radio-collared dog incapable of walking and carried it to the nearest road, where he heard from locals that the owners of the dog were renown for not treating their dogs well.Only a few days ago, Vietnam Vet had found a starving dog -- and, we suspect, the source of the illness that wiped out 2am and Sweetblood -- and opted to wait with it at a shelter until its owner arrived. Now it's our turn. As we headed over a bald towards Jerry's Cabin shelter, we encountered a very young and also very very skinny dog with a radio-tracking collar on its neck. From its yelps, it was clearly not in a good way and the shelter register made it clear it had been hanging around here for days.Sriracha's phone uses Verizon so he was able to call the owners, who claimed it had been missing for a couple of days. That didn't really match with what we were seeing but whatever. Then because it was in such poor condition, Sriracha, Sweetblood and Dirt ended up carrying it for six miles -- SIX MILES -- to rendezvous with its owners.This is in keeping with this trio. I'd already heard plenty of stories about how their home in North Carolina was a menagerie of rescued animals and the only thing that surprised me so far was they hadn't yet adopted an animal on this trip.It was clear they were tempted with this one, though, since there were lots of factual holes in the owners' story.We hadn't expected this when we left Six-Sevenths camp this morning. Usually ridgetop campsites are comfortable but something about this one seemed to channel the wind all night. As soon as we left camp, the buffeting stopped and we walked past a bunch of beautiful campsites, including one with a killer view of the sunrise.And then we descended to Devil's Fork Gap and went past the camp where 2am must have stayed and felt a pang of guilt about that...There's some bad weather coming so we're hauling miles to get to a shelter to hunker down. I'd been extolling the virtues of a shelter zero -- a zero day in a shelter -- and depending on what it's like tomorrow, that might be what happens.In the meantime, we had to content ourselves by having lunch on a spectacular outcrop called Big Butt Mountain. It was a great spot to eat. I cannot lie. You other guys cannot deny.It was after that we encountered the lost dog on our way to Jerry Cabin shelter. I'd been tempted to stop here for the night since the shelter had a fireplace inside, which would have been great for a shelter zero, but we thought it would be wiser to cross Firescald Mountain -- a supposed difficult section of trail, or so supposed uber-hiker Twisted had told us -- while it was still dry and sunny.I'll admit to a bit of apprehension about Firescald Mountain, which had the old AT as a low level route that bypassed the difficulties. As we got to where the old and new ATs split, there were dire wanrings about how difficult it was graffitied on the signpost.And I don't think anything has ever been so overhyped. "Unending rock scrambling!" was one such claim but the sobo translation of these nobo claims was: "slightly rocky trail". I think on the entire thing, I used my hands once -- a far cry from the difficulties of something like the Mahoosucs, when I'd had to use all my bouldering skills to find a way through.Soon after that we completed the final few miles to Little Laurel shelter, where there was just one other person present -- a sobo we'd been following for months, named Turtle Trax -- which meant there was plenty of room for us in the shelter.There's a slow but adequate spring nearby which has allowed us to fill with water using the last of the light. Something tells me water won't be an issue tomorrow!About half an hour after full dark, Sriracha, Sweetblood and Dirt arrived and told us how they'd had to carry the ailing dog for six miles. But they were also beaming from having had the chance to do something good, which says all you need to know about this trio.Now we're all settled in the shelter. Life is good.AT fact of the day: I'm calling bullshit on Twisted, the self-declared seven-times AT thru-hiker and triple crowner. He'd said the toughest part of the entire trail was Firescald mountain, which seemed a little far fetched after what we'd been through in Maine. But we also hadn't yet been there and gave him the benefit of the doubt, even though his boastfulness and lack of modesty automatically made me suspicious of his claims. Having now done Firescald mountain, it'd be one of the easiest days in Maine! It's weird but it seems like he's yet another example of people on the southern AT who claim to be things they're not, like the stolen valour of fake military veterans...