Date: 2016-06-01
From: Stealth Campsite on Chestnut Knob

To: Laurel Creek
Miles today: 18.4
Weather: clear sky

The day of suck and boy did it suck. I woke up at 6am wet. Wet sleeping bag, wet pad, wet tent, wet everything. It poured so hard that water got between the tent and the base layer and soaked through during the night. I got up and ate a cold breakfast and then packed up all the wet gear. I got on trail about 7am. The climb was brutal like it was last night. I just thought it was because I was tired. Up up up for another two miles. I passed a group of three yellow lady slippers. I had never seen yellow before only pink. I took pictures and sent one to Leslie my plant specialist who I used to work with just to confirm. Wow!! So cool!! The trail broke into a grassy field but still climbed. After about a 1/2 mile I came to a pond with a spring on the north side of it. I filled up on water. It was only 8:30 am and it was hot. I kept climbing through 2 more fields when I came to Chestnut Knob Shelter. The shelter was a cinder block building with a door. It slept 8 and had a picnic table inside the shelter. You could of fit 30 people inside standing. If I had known that I would have pushed onto the shelter even though it was raining. However the fields and exposed ridge line in the thunderstorm might have been a bit harrowing. I stopped at the shelter had a snack and wrote in the log book. Virgil was there who I had met before the day Jeff picked me up at Mt Rogers. I didn't know his trail name though. He is section hiking and is doing about 300 miles this summer. I continued down the trail and the guidebook showed an easy 4 mile plateau. Well I should know better that this means 44 steep but short ups snd downs. They are so short the book shows it as a straight line. By mile 3 I was crawling and struggling. It was hot and I was trying to conserve water as there is none for a ten mile stretch and I was in it. Finally I made the last climb and was downhill to US 623 which is a dirt road with parking. I collapsed drank some water and ate my lunch. I tried to lay some of my stuff out in the sun to dry but planned on hanging my tent in the hot afternoon sun when I got to Jenkins shelter. After lunch I started back and had a climb up and out of the dirt road. This side was not to bad. I had several ups and downs along the ridges line and then got to the three mile downhill to Jenkins shelter. I was just about out of water and was trying to use it sparingly. Finally I arrived at the shelter and first filtered water. Once finished with that I took off my boots and put my sandels on. I started to pull out all my wet gear from my bag when I noticed it had started to cloud over. I moved my bag to the shelter and the heavens opened up. There was already a hiker at the shelter when I arrived napping but they quickly woke up with the rain. Then I heard thunder. Well this is going to be awhile. With nothing else to do I took out my sleeping pad and took a nap. Virgil arrived about 30 minutes later and then a south bounder who is doing a flip flop hike from Pennsylvania. After about an hour more the rain subsided and the sun came out. It was 4:30 and I pushed on. Where it was much later now I decided to head for Laurel Creek campsites than try and get to the next shelter. With all the pop up storms I did not want to get stuck. I already had a wet tent I didn't want to have to set it up in the rain. I didn't get a chance to dry it out with the afternoon rain. Ompi texted me saying the next stretch wasn't too bad and he had hitched a ride into Bland and missed the rain. He was about a mile from the next shelter which put him about 8 miles in front of me. I only had one climb to do and got at it. The climb itself wasn't too bad the mud made it super difficult. After about 1.5 miles I got up on top of the ridge line and the trail was flat for 2.5 miles. I took out my back up phone charger and plugged in my phone so it would be fully charged when I got to camp. It was down to 28%. I walked the 2.5 easy miles and pulled my phone out to check on the status of charging. The phone was at 30% and the charger was dead. At the hotel in Bristol when I was charging it, something seemed off. Now I know why. Ugh. I'm going to have to go into Bland to charge my phone. I don't like being in the woods with no battery. I could use my stove but with all the rain it has not been reliable for that. I kept on chugging and descended the mile down to Laurel creek. There were campsites across the dirt road. When I arrived a few other thru hikers were set up. None I had met before. I set up my tent which was soaked (boy this is gonna be fun to sleep in) then proceeded to make dinner. Chris Lovell had mailed me nips and I still had a Kahlua one left. I made 6 cups of hot water and made ramen, rice and coffee which I put the nip in. Great night cap Chris. Thank you!! Made the ending of the day nice.