Day 16, Tuesday, February 27. Cold Spring Shelter—11.2 miles

With my fourth (yes, fourth) nocturnal excursion, I decided to just stay up. It was already 6:45 and I could see the sun rising in the east. I decided to let Bunny Tracks and Mizman keep snoring away blissfully. I got dressed, retrieved the bear bags, boiled water for coffee, boiled more water for oatmeal, took pictures of the sunrise, and then decided to end my blissful morning—I served Bunny breakfast in bed.

If I could use one word for last night, it would be cold and miserable. I guess that’s two words—cold, miserable, and sleepless. OK, three words, but you get the point. When we went to bed, Bunny didn’t want to use the new $100 sleeping pad we had bought yesterday, so we ended up not setting the bag up properly. Our Big Agnes bag has sleeves for the pads but she decided she would use the old, damaged pad instead because we didn’t have the proper inflator for the new ones which made it a two person job to blow them up. After about a half hour of trying to sleep, she decided the new one was worth the effort, but not worth the effort to put in the bag. As a result, we suffered a night of Bunny hogging the bag and accusing me of hogging the bag. In reality, Bunny is the hog. It doesn’t matter, we were both cold and sleepless.

Today was my best chance for a solid with the AYCE buffet yesterday, the 3 hamburgers at lunch today, and a salad for supper. Once again, peanut butter. Am I drinking too much? Not enough crap in my diet? I’m mystified.

We said our goodbyes to Mizman a little before 9 and said we were going to Cold Sping Shelter this evening. He said he’d try to join us, but up to this point, he has been hiking shelter to shelter afraid to get caught between shelters because the friend he was supposed to hike with bailed on him at the last minute and he was the one with the tent. I didn’t get a lot from Mizman other than he had some health problems a few years back and he seeems generally happy to be alive. He seems very upbeat and positive and he’s fun to talk with. I hope to see more of him up the trail.

We’d only been hiking a few miles when we actually saw some people we know NOT hiking the trail. It was the older couple with the Teddy Bear dog that stayed at the hostel we were at the night before last. They have been traveling around North America from coast to coast for the last two years exploring anything they find interesting. Their dog is 17 years old and the cutest little guy imaginable. Once he passes, they plan to try some longer trails, but right now, they are out picking up trash along the AT trying to “pay back” the luck they have had.

As we were approaching Wayah Bald, Stickers passed us up. We had met him and Lady Bug at the Leapfrog Cafe yesterday. We expected her to pass us soon, but she hadn’t by the time we got to the top of the mountain. The forest fire last year really torched this area. There were great views to be had, but the forest service has hired some contractors to rebuild the tower at the summit so they had a generator running which spoiled the peacefulness of the place. We talked to Stickers a bit, but decided to move on because of the noise.

About a mile past the summit was the Wayah Bald Shelter. Bunny and I stopped for lunch there knowing that Stickers and Lady Bug were on their way. I also taunted Mizman a little trying to get him to push on and catch up with us. It was 2:30 before we left with no signs of anyone approaching, but it was a beautiful hiking day with clear blue skies. We still had almost 5 miles to make it to the next shelter and Bunny was hurting a bit on the uphill sections. Truth is, we were both dragging from lack of sleep last night.

Burningtown Gap gave us a nice surprise. We had just gotten passed by a young guy that started from Rock Gap this morning (he already had close to 20 miles in). He just blew by the gap and didn’t look around. As soon as we got in the open, Bunny noticed a grocery bag hanging from a tree—could this be magic? It was a bag of chocolate covered donut holes, a tangerine, and a bottle of Gatorade. We were only going to eat a few donut holes a piece, but I was having a low sugar moment and needed the energy to climb the final mile and a half. Bottom line, I carried an empty box and bottle up to the campsite.

When we got to Cold Creek Shelter, there was someone sleeping inside. Ket, an older woman, has been hiking shelter to shelter since February 7.  She kept comparing herself to everyone passing her up and feeling left behind.  She also hadn’t eaten anything since she arrived a few hours ago. I tried to convince her to eat, but she said she wasn’t hungry.  She’s been traveling with Maximus for a few weeks. Mizman arrived while we were talking. He wasn’t 10 minutes behind us and he had an extra mile to travel plus, he didn’t leave the shelter until 11; 2 hours after us. He is a much faster hiker than we are.

It took all of the daylight left for us to cook supper, filter water, hang bear bags, properly set up the bed, and change into bed clothes. When we got in bed, I looked over at Mizman and thought he was smoking before I realized I was just seeing my own breath. It’s going to be another cold night.

EFG