Last night sealed the deal—we are hostel bound. We stayed warm and dry, but I am tired of the cold. On the bright side, we couldn’t see our breath when we stuck our heads out of our bags in the morning. As usual, I got up first and made my lovely wife hot tea and scrambled eggs for breakfast (even though I don’t like chicken abortions, I sucked it up and boiled the water).
It was another frozen trail/slushy trail kind of day. I am tired of snow. I am tired of ice. I am tired of cold. I am tired of fog. I am tired of politics. I am tired of being tired. I am tired.
Today’s excursions includes a trip over Big Butt Mountain. We passed through an open field where hikers have been adding their names to the snow on the side of the trail. Of course, we added ours: Bunny with a few footprints after, and Easily (crossed out and replaced with Best) Forgotten. Other than a short visit by the crack on top of Big Butt, our primary goal remained making it to Devil Fork Gap to catch a ride to the hostel—so much slush after the summit on the way down.
Once the slush gave way and the trail started to dry out, our spirits lifted a bit. I was actually thinking that maybe we could skip the shelter, after all, the temperature was almost 50. Mother Nature, being a bit vindictive at times, decided to let me know she was not going to let go of winter too quickly and promptly lowered the temperature back to 35 with just a single ridge crossing.
A little less than a mile from Flint Mountain Shelter, we saw a fly hanging in the tree with a lot of blue showing. No doubt, it had to be Little Blue. His pack is blue. His shirt is blue. His pants are blue. His filter is blue. Everything he owns is blue. Ironically, his favorite color is not blue, it’s indigo. He has been having ankle issues and decided to take a zero out here in the woods rather than make it to the hostel last night. He’s been hiking with Dirty R, Grape Stomper, Bear Foot, Geo, and Summit but they are scattering a bit.
We headed up to Flint Mountain Shelter to wait for Lady Bug and Stickers to catch up. Poncho and Switch were there having a bite to eat. After a bit of talk, we discovered we had already met them at the diner the other day in Hot Springs. Poncho is a high energy guy. He never stops moving. He made all of his own gear just because he has too much energy. We talked with him for quite a while while we waited for the other two to show.
When Stickers and Lady Bug showed up, they grabbed a bite to eat and made arrangements for us to be picked up at the gap. We covered the 2.7 miles in an hour down to the gap—our fastest hour to date. The woman that owns the hostel was unavailable so she sent her neighbor to pick us up. Mike took us on a little tour of the area including a brand new state park in the area.
We got to the hostel and immediately liked it. It was clean and brand new. As soon as we got our showers, we decided we would stay another night. Everyone decided we should slack pack tomorrow, but this goes against my hiking standards. I have no problem staying another night, but I have got to carry my pack the whole way. It’s kind of a CCD issue with me.
EFG