Date: 2008-01-09
From: Muskrat Creek Shelter, NC

To: Deep Gap Shelter, NC
Miles today: 11.6
Weather: broken clouds

It rained heavily in the night. Mist billowed into the shelter all night so that using a headlamp was all but impossible, and anything out of its waterproof bag would have got damp (nothing was). The shelter is infested with tiny bugs about the size of the eye of a needle, and my morning cup of tea was black with them. I had very good sleep for a change and felt pretty good this morning. It was definitely a good decision not to stay at Standing Indian Shelter which would have been much wetter and with lots of wind chill due to wide gaps between the floorboards. Here at Muskrat the floorboards have been butted together, as have the wallboards, so there are no gaps. Someone has been careless enough to burn a hole through one of the floorboards so I suppose it is lucky that the shelter did not burn down. If there is a privy here, Dave can not find it.AND ....in the morning I found it in the dark! Just followed the trail ...We set off at about 7.30 in heavy mist - so heavy that the torch was all but useless. Dawn was just breaking so I didn't need to try using the torch for long. Being so misty with a bit of a breeze the trees dripped as if it were raining. In fact, we wondered if it was for a while and had all our rain gear on. Then we dropped down below 4000 feet and suddenly there was no mist any more, the trees and ground were all dry and the sun was shining. The breeze was gone and it was a beautiful day. Given the forecast we'd seen in Franklin, this was most unexpected and most welcome. It was a great day of hiking with 1279m of climbing (1622m down) and a temperature range of 10-21oC - perfect. Somewhere along the trail, we missed meeting Stumpknocker. He may have gone past while we had lunch at Standing Indian. We'd been looking out for him and it was disappointing to discover his signature in the register at Plumorchard Shelter and realise we had missed him.Plumorchard Gap shelterWe are at Deep Gap Shelter now and it is in the shade and all is perfectly still and quiet. According to the register there is a lot of bear activity around here so we have hung all the food we are not going to eat tonight from the bear cables. We are set up on the ground floor and I really don't want to have to climb up into the attic if bears arrive in the night, as someone said they had to do. There is a large bag of rubbish here that surely would have attracted the bears if there were any around.There is a bit of moaning in the register about the ups and downs in this area. I can understand what they mean as the gradients have quite often been steeper than we encountered further north. But the trail is easy which makes quite a difference. I can feel the strength returning to my ankle and leg and am confident (ha, ha) that the injury is now past tense.Dave is sitting in his sleeping bag waiting to be fed! We have a 4-course meal tonight thanks to Cathy who sent us a care package which finally caught up to us in Franklin. So first it is vege soup, then a Mountain House meal of spaghetti and meat sauce (which is supposed to feed two people) then the main course of potato with salmon, parsley, coconut, sunflower seeds, baby formula, cheese and butter. Is your mouth watering? Dessert is a large chocolate bar. The Mountain House meal weighs 128 gms. We find that 200 gms per person is a minimum weight of food for dinner, and again for breakfast. Snacks and lunch vary a lot between us, Dave with about 600gms and me with half that. Obviously weight of food per person varies with the fat/calorie content, but those weights are a rough guide for us.At Deep Gap Shelter