Date: 2016-04-03
From: White Top Mountain Rd Campsite

To: Old Orchard Shelter
Miles today: 18.4
Weather: broken clouds

4/3/16Well it was not a good night on the AT. I may have moved but the wind kept coming. About ten o'clock one of my stakes pulled loose and my tent went down. The wind was howling good and I was wondering if I got out, would it blow away. I now know where all the leaves in the forest go....in my tent...lol. They blow to my door and when I open the doorway...in they come. So I push as many out of the door as I can and go out and restake my tent. I go to the firepit and get some large rocks to help keep weight on the pins to keep them in place. I get back in and notice the pole hoping it up is improperly positioned. I don't want a hole in my tent so I put it where it should be and go back out to get a tighten the string to take the sag out. The wind doesn't stop and again at 4 AM the bottom of my tent breaks loose. I get it put back and get in my tent and little pieces of leaves are all over. They seem to like my sleeping bag and sleeping bag liner and collect inside. Well it holds and I get some sleep. My sleeping bag is rated at 15 degrees and the liner takes the rating down to 10 degrees. I sleep in a T-shirt and shorts and I am comfortable. The sleeping bag has a hood for your head and I put it on and zip it so there is just a small opening to breath and see out of. I wake to sunlight at seven and twenty minutes later get dressed and load my backpack. The tent is a challenge with the wind but I use the rocks from the fire pit to help control it while I roll it and the plastic under it up. It is cold and some if the water in my bottle is frozen. I get my food bag out of the tree( we hang them there to keep bears, mice, and any other animal out) and go check on Bumble Bee to make sure she is doing okay. She had made some oatmeal and was in her tent in her sleeping bag eating it. So I let her know I am heading out. It is cols and still windy so moving/ hiking will be good. Most of the water I have is frozen so about a mile down the trail I fill my water blatter(soft bottle) from spring and plan to filter down the trail after I have warmed up some. So probably an hour and a half later I go to filter it and it has a lot of ice in it. The filters get ruined if they freeze so I figure its not good to run frozen water through. I get my other bottle(gatoraid) and ice is frozen in the neck of the bottle so I use my closed pocket knife and pound on it several times until I get a small opening to get some water. A little while later I see some section hikers and I asked if they knew the temperature last night. One guy said he heard it got down to 18 degrees and wind gusts were up to 60 mph. I know one thing...I love my sleeping bag...it kept me toastie. My camp site was above 5000 ft and we stayed above that for the first half of the day. One area was bad climbing up a hill and the wind would blow you sideways, but that didn't go on too long and later in the day it warmed up and the wind was not as high. I was on MT Rodgers which is the highest spot in Virginia but didn't go to the top...the AT doesn't got there and there are no views from the top because of the trees. After my first lunch(I get two, you know) it was off to Grayson Highlands State Park. This is known to AT hikers because they have wild ponies that live there. The history of this area is loggers created balds after logging it then later land owners used it for grazing livestock and when the park service took it back over it started growing back up so they got wild ponies to keep that from happening. I seen one pony but there were all lot of people around it so I kept going. I walked a ways and was wondering if I was going to see any more and finally did come up to seven or eight grazing. I snapped a few pics and pet one slighy but moved on because I didn't know if they would get aggressive, right before I left the park I ran into a couple more grazing. I stopped for my second lunch and chatted with a SOBO thru hiker. His hike is a lot different than mine. He has gone days without seeing other hikers. I don't like having tons of people around but I do like having some. After lunch I did seven more miles before arriving at the shelter. I hadn't seen Bumble Bee all day but she arrived about an hour later. Also chatted with some college kids from Hocking Hills College that are down section hiking...i thought spring break but its part of their class. Well my tent isn't getting hammered by winds tonight so hopefully a peaceful night.