Date: 2018-06-14
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

Thurs Day 123 6/14 long daySo Gary was there at 4:55. He was a bright ray of sunshine early in the morning, a very helpful, very friendly guy. He was happy to drop us off at the trail. So it was a good solid climb to get back up on the ridge. We like uphill, it's better. We did a nice job. We got to the first shelter pretty quickly and hiked on by. We got to the second Shelter by 10. It had gotten very, very windy. The wind was 25-30 miles an hour. It is always more exciting when the wind is blowing so strong. It reminded me of hiking through the Smokies. There the wind was in the 35 to 45 miles an hour range. The branches are swelling, waving,and snaping around above you which makes it a little unnerving. With the wind the temperature also dropped. While we were taking a break at the second shelter Rose, Ben and Gandolpho arrived. They were very pleased with their speed because they were at the first shelter that we had passed. Another 6 other southbound section hikers came by as well. It was quite a group of cold hikers as everybody was putting on their puffies and talkin about how cold it was in mid-June. We took a bit of a long break and then hiked on. At this point the clouds had covered over and it was very windy. It was a Rough Rocky Rooty Trail. That really affects your foot speed. You have to be incredibly specific about where you put your foot. You can easily twist an ankle, sprain a knee, or just tenderize some piece of your foot by putting all that pressure on a very small percentage of your foot surface. As a result you really slow way down. You can't get any momentum or rhythm going because each step is not connected to any other step. Each step is about safely putting your foot down on the trail. Our goal had been a 23 mile day to a particular campsite. As the day wore on we wore down. Gandolfo and Rose and Ben stopped at the next shelter for lunch. We had already taken our long break so we hiked right past Kid Gore shelter. This was not a view day but rather just make miles day. After our break we had passed this fire tower but because of the clouds and the cold wind there wasn't much to see. It's also on a very windy day incredibly cold climbing up on a fire tower. Eventually Gandolpho passed us and then Rose and Ben passed us. We r the early start, slow hikers on rhe trail. Somehow we all keep ending up in pretty much the same place and keep crossing paths. A little bit of the Tortoise and Hare story. We weren't on pace to be doing 2 miles an hour and get to are targeted campsite. So around 4 as it was misting and looking a lot like rain we decide to start looking for a stealth site. When We came to a footbridge crossing a creek. It had established stealth sites on both sides. We decided twenty one and a half miles was good for the day and stopped. As we were setting up camp Red Bird caught up to us. We left Bennington at 5 a.m. Res Bird left Pennington at 10 a.m. He was in a within a half a hour of us. We did 21 miles in 12 hours. He did 21 miles in 7 hours. So we invited him to camp with us. This was a big place. Soon after we got set up it started to rain. It rained a lot throughout the night. My tent was great and I was dry.