Date: 2008-05-11
From: Overmountain Shelter

To: Apple House Shelter
Miles today: 8.2

Day 41Where do I start!Today is Mother's Day. Mother Nature knew it and gave us a buffet of her best!I begin with last night where we slept at the barn on the lower level platform,, with a beautiful view of the valley below. We retired at hiker midnight which is 9:00 p..m. with hopes of a beautiful sunrise. Thunderstorms were predicted. At midnight, the wind picked up with enormose strength, at which I merely awoke and went back to sleep. At 3:00 a.m I got up, woke up all and we went up in the loft of the barn to spare ourselves from hypothermia. Everything was wet as a huge cloud moved in and was blowing all around us.Waking at 7:30, the winds were still blowing. I took a trip to the privy to evaluate the situation. It didn't seem that bad. So by 9:30 I was packed, ate some granola, got some water from Shilo and headed out. We needed to get down lower, but in order to accomplish that, we needed to start the day going up. In order was a 1200' climb up Little Hump Mt. which by the way was not a "little" hump. As I kicked it into low gear to start climbing the mountain, I was presented with wind gusts in excess of 45 mph. I have heard that gusts were at fail force, some as much as 60 mph. I know that the wind propelled the rain, which pelted my face and body. The wind was so strong, I would take a step with my right foot to propel myself forward and the next step with my left foot was merely to balance myself and to keep myself from blowing away!And then there was Hump Mt, which wasnt really a mountain, but a series of balds, huge balds. The rain continued with the wind for the frist 5 miles. By the time I got to the 3rd mile, I truly thought that the bald was never going to stop going up. I got mad at myself for making the decision to even venture out for the day and stopped counting my steps and just barreled forward. Coming down, the path was comprised of big boulders and the strategic game of choosing a rock to step on without slipping and falling began. I came upon a fellow hiker by the name of Blackberry, who proclaimed, "Can it get any worse?". Just as she said that, there was a bolt of lightening and a enormouse calp of thunder. I replied, "We not suppose to ask those kind of questions!".Not 5 miles later, I was standing in the Doll Flatts, the sky was blue and the sun warm. It was just incredible. As I looked back at the mountains, I could see the storm still raging. I arrived at the shelter around 2:-- with intentions of moving on. But when I heard that there was a steak house just down the road, my mind was easily changed. My body has been craving protein. Another reason I feel that I was able to be so strong today was because of the Mt House Beef Stew for two that I ate last night. After a great steak dinner, I sat on the porch for 1 1/2 hours talking to my family on the cell, my cup runneth over!And so toady was Mothers Day, but also Sunday. Sunday is always an incredible day, and today was not exception.Spirit caught up to me this evening at the shelter. Elgixin and Springloaded are off the trail. Still trying to get to Damascus by Friday.Life is good!