Date: 2018-05-19
To: 501 shelter
Miles today: 20.0
Weather: broken clouds

Sat Day 96 5/19 better dayI went to bed feeling so miserable yesterday that I did not set my internal alarm clock. I woke up and it was raining outside the shelter. Cody Coyote had come in and was sleeping in the shelter as well. I woke up around 6:30 and didn't even want to get up. My feet were screaming at me. After a while I mobilized and spent 45 minutes individually Leuko taping the top of each toe on both feet. There was one sore spot on the bottom of my right foot index toe. I ate the rest of the food that was in my food bag. Ibex who had come in yesterday came down to get her food bag. It was already 8:30 or so. I asked her if she'd like to hike together today. We've been in the same shelter for 5 nights in a row. I would always leave early and she would always arrive late. I didn't know what kind of pace she hiked at but we did seem to end up in the same place. She still had to pack up. We thought we'd give it a try. We actually got on the trail around 9:15. It was supposed to rain hard until at least noon. It surely did. It rained all morning. The day seemed to go by a way easier with somebody to talk to. The streams were up all over. We came to one bridge that was actually partial bridge and partially a tree that was positioned to get across a creek. The water was very high and was actually above the lowest part of this bridge so you had to put your feet in the water to get across this bridge. Tested with my trekking poles for the bottom. There was no bottom to be touched. The stream was very high and raging. Ibex unbuckled her backpack as to stream crossing safety. Probably a very good move. We both successfully got over the bridge. The bridge in this case was a fallen down tree. So we were walking on a wet fallen down tree to get over this Creek. We then went under an underpass and the Raging Creek was within 3 in of flooding the concrete walkway under the road. Needless to say there was a lot of water on the trail. It was a very wet morning.We found out that they had closed the trail at Harpers Ferry. The Potomac has flooded and the foot bridges are at risk of being swept away. We took two breaks but we're making steady time. We arrived at the 501 Shelter at around 5. This was a very nice shelter. You had bunks for 12. It had doors that closed. You could charge your phone at the caretaker's house. There was running water as well from the caretaker's house. We got ourself situated and actually were able to order food to be delivered. We ended up ordering too much food. One of the requirements of the shelter, even though it was so close to the road in town, was you had to carry out your trash. So we put the leftover food that we weren't eating and the trash in a trash bag and paid the delivery guy $5 to come back and pick up the trash cuz we didn't want to carry a lot of heavy food and trash that we weren't eating. The roof in this shelter was corrugated tin, and big 15 foot hexagonal plastic Center window. All this roof space amplified the sound of the raindrops hitting so it always sounded like it was storming tremendously outside. I really felt the whole lot better hiking with someone. The day pasted much more pleasantly. I taped up my feet again with the Leuko tape. When your feet are wet all day it's just pretty demanding to expect the tape to stay perfectly in place. My boots are pretty disgusting. They have been wet since Boiling Springs. My boots just hold the water in. When we went to sleep we were alone in the shelter. Later someone came in while I was sleeping. I didn't even hear them come in or figure out who they were.