Date: 2015-05-17
From: US 60 Long Mountian Wayside

To: Seeley-Woodworth Shelter
Miles today: 14.0
Weather: broken clouds

I had a great night sleep in the creepy motel. And I'm not being sarcastic at all. I slept great. I packed up my stuff, thankfully my clothes all dried. Except my socks. They were still pretty damp and kinda gross. I have 2 more pairs so I hung the wet pair on my pack to dry. I walked over to the Dollar store and did my quick resupply. And writing this now I realized I had my nasty socks hanging on the outside of my pack while I was in the store. Kinda gross. Anyways, after I resupplies I called the taxi service that picked me up last night. They were pretty awesome so I didn't mind spending the money. My driver was a nice guy. We chatted about the trail the whole way back. I got to the trail pretty late. It was about 10am. And it was very very hot and humid. I was not looking forward to starting because it was a pretty large uphill. 3 miles right at the start. And it wasn't easy. I dragged butt all morning climbing that stupid thing. The little annoying mosquito bugs were pretty obnoxious as well. I have bug spray but I just sweat it off. And I don't want to keep applying it and have my skin melt off. I finally made it up, leveled for a bit and then went back up to Cole Mountain. It was amazing! I walked along the bald and the views were just stunning. The sun peeked out here and there to add some great contrast. It was awesome. I saw a lot of day hikers as well, I was hoping for some trail magic since there were so many people. No such luck. I moved on down to the road crossing and stopped for lunch. There was a sign at Hop Pen gap saying water .5 miles...ugh. But someone wrote in sharpie underneath saying there was a closer spring just north on the AT. Sure enough, I crossed the road and in the field there was a sign saying spring and pointing east. So off I went. It kept going and going and going. I feel like the .5 to the other spring down the road was closer. Eventually I made it and was able to get about 2 liters. So back up to the trail I went carrying all my water. Once back I found a place to sit down in the field for lunch. There were fire pits around and some logs, great place for lunch. I looked at my phone...2pm. It took 4 hours to walk 6 miles and eat lunch. This was a really slow day.The rest of the afternoon went pretty well. There was nothing too bad about the trail terrainwise. I was super sweaty and the bugs were irritating, pretty part for the course. I made it to camp and set up my tent. Then I ran down to the creek to wash up. I thought the bugs on the trail were bad...the bugs at the shelter were 100 times worse. I slathered myself in the organic bug off soap I have that may or may not work. In my mind it works great but in reality it lasts for 15 minutes. But what a glorious bug free 15 minutes it was. I met a couple at the picnic table. They are doing a flip flop and just started yesterday. They asked questions and we chatted about life on the trail. It was pretty cool. They had some awesome mosquire netting for thier head that I'm contemplating getting at some point. There was another hiker there but I didnt catch her name. She brought in frozen burritos from town. So by the time she got to camp they were thawed. Looked interesting but I'm not sure of it would taste good...plus the weight, ugh. I carry enough crap as it is. The bugs drove us to our tents. Super annoying.