Date: 2014-04-15
From: Nantahala Outdoor Center

To: Locust Cove Gap
Miles today: 10.3

This was an interesting day.Slept fine in the stinky bunks and did not end up sleeping in the Community Room which seemed to be more appealing. I mean you can get used to anything, including badly ventilated musky rooms. I actually slept really well since there was no reason to be wary about your gear overnight or wild animals trying to sneak into your stuff.It was still raining throughout the morning so I took my sweet time getting ready for the day (didn't hit the trail until the afternoon.) The sun was out within an hour when I did start hiking. I felt sorry for all the hikers I passed who were wearing their rain gear. Nothing makes you sweat more than climbing a mountain in rain gear. Which is counter productive because the idea is to stay dry... This particular climb was basically uphill for 7 miles. There weren't any breaks with a short lived flat spot or downhill dip that lets you recover. You just kept going up. At some point my ears went numb and my hands were getting there. Just a few hours before then, I was talking to a hiker named Mailman. He was rightly concerned about people who will be on top of the mountain for the night. I was going to be one of them. Being some kid coming from San Diego, I think he felt a particular obligation to part some wisdom. Particularly about getting frostbite on his ears while doing a simple day hike. With that moment of reflection, I thought, "maybe I should put on more clothes..." I kept hiking a little longer because this mountain wasn't going to hike itself and the sun was still shining. Stopping would not be allowed unless I had to while I still had momentum going. Going faster would also solve the problem of being cold.Next thing I know, I enter a tunnel of Rhododendron trees so I couldn't see the blue sky anymore. As I emerged through the other side, I was hit by a wall of white. There was white stuff floating around everywhere. It took me a whole extra moment to realize "WTF IT'S SNOWING. DID I JUST ENTER A MAGICAL TREE PORTAL INTO NARNIA?!" Too lazy to backtrack 200 steps downhill to double check, I continued trekking upwards. Not before stopping to put on some gloves and a jacket though. All I knew was that if I saw a talking lion, it was obvious someone laced my water with LSD.The closer I got to Sassafras Shelter near the top, the windier and icier it got. By windier and icier, I mean those two things combined and it would be an understatement to say my face was hurting. The shelter was totally shielded from the madness which is where I saw a familiar hiker who looks eerily similar to Jon Snow from Game of Thrones. Same hair and everything. So of course I had tell him that winter was coming. After a quick snack, I left the shelter to summit the peak and find a place to camp on the other side of the mountain. I laughed to myself about all the bundled up hikers watching me from the safety of their poofy sleeping bags. All I could see were their noses and eyes peeping out and tracking me as I made a move to go out again. This is where I made my first trail mistake. I didn't close my camel pak all the way with my frozen fingers and hurriedly strapped it to the top of my pack. 15 minutes later I decided that the wet sensation on top of my butt wasn't just the cold winds and investigated. A whole liter of water leaked into my pack right where I least want water - inside of my compactor bag liner. I wrote a Haiku about it...I titled it Wet Sleeping Bag by Affirm.Won't post it here because it has a lot of profanity in it for such few syllables that a Haiku is composed of.