Date: 2019-04-04
From: Wayah Bald Shelter

To: Franklin
Miles today: -1.0
Weather: clear sky

All night I fret over the dog. She's not sleeping well. She is shivering. It's not even a very cold night. I consider my options. If she needs to be carried I'm going to struggle. She's just under 100 lbs and that 1000 ft climb back to the top of Wayah Bald is going to be close to impossible. Perhaps I could recruit another hiker to help. I figured in the worst case I would simply leave all my gear so I could get her up there. Then there was a ride. Thankfully I did have phone signal where I was (we have it about 1/2 the time mostly on mountain tops but not usually in valleys) so would be able to call for help. The deciding factor was how she would be in the morning. My biggest concern, would she eat? And the answer was no. She was, however, able to walk on her own. I took all she was carrying and strapped her empty pack on her. Then I packed all my and her things and we headed up. She did reasonably well with only a little prodding but she was clearly still listless. After a bit of a wait, Stan arrived to take us down. Amusingly, while I was waiting, another truck showed up with both a Lyft and Uber sticker and here he was dropping off a day hiker. Yes, for $25 Matt drives hikers up here. Again, the friendliness of Franklin. Google puts the one way drive at 45 minutes. Leila is not in urgent distress but still her behavior is not right. I book an appointment with Noahs Ark Animal Hospital based on Matt's recommendation. Here we are in Franklin again out of sorts and restless. I wanted to be hiking to Nantahala today and Stan was going to be on the move again but now we're both just waiting for Leila's appointment. The day would have been a great hiking day but it as it wears on it gets darker with tomorrow's impending storm. Then another surprise out of left field to brighten the day, a highly trained C.I.A. french chef decided to set up a true french bistro here, which is now one of the best rated restaurants in NC. This is breaking my diet habits but oh la la! Cafe Rel was outstanding! Then on to the vet. Again, I'm so lucky. The vet has two Great Danes of his own so knows the idiosyncrasies of the breed and he'd been an Iditerod sled dog race competitor so also understood the special needs of a dog hiking the AT. He had great people skills and gave us his time. Thankfully anything serious was ruled out and both fortunately and unfortunately he really had no advice to give. We addressed some possibilities and for now are just going to give her some R&R time. No hiking dog for a while. Often times, hiking the AT is hiking with a series of unexpected delays, this was one of them. Getting back on can be the challenge.Now back to hiking... What to do tomorrow? Most of the storm is supposed to pass in the night and taper off by 11am. I have a 17 mile stretch. I'm thinking I'm going to make a run for it. Without my full pack and the dog I'm hoping if I start around 9-10 I can fly the distance fairly fast. While my joints are not liking miles, yesterday really showed me my strength is improving quite well. I did 11 miles with full pack and a listless dog in an afternoon. The joints will be much happier without the excess weight so regardless of the rain that's the plan.Hyper99