Day 31-Hey, I’ve Got an Indoor Swimming Pool!

April 18-10.1 Miles-Hogback Ridge Shelter to Bald Mtn Shelter-AT mile post 327.4

I slept really good last night! It started raining about 4:00am, but I had prepared for it. I even brought my shoes inside my tent (they just get muddy under the vestibule). I woke up this morning, and looked down at the foot of my tent. Hmmm, I thought, it looks like there is a shimmering pool there. Well, there was! Unfortunately, as I was set up on a slope, my sleeping pad had slid down and pushed the bathtub part of my tent out beyond the body of the tent, causing the rain to run down the tent and inside. Everything at the end of the tent was soaking wet. The foot box of my quilt was surprisingly not that wet. However, when I pulled my bra and t-shirt out of the foot of my quilt, the bra was completely soaked...I mean like I could ring water out of it! Since I only have the one bra...well, let’s just say certain body parts got to run free today! The t-shirt wasn’t totally soaked, and if it had been a warm day, I probably would have worn it. But, it was not a warm day (the sun did come out, but it was still only in the 40s). I just wore my sleeping baselayer. 

There was so much water at the foot of my tent that I bailed it out with my cook pot. Once I got the water out, I used my little absorbent cloth to wipe up the rest. The compression dry sack that holds my clothes, quilt, and pillow, was soaked on the outside. The extra unders and socks on the inside were dry, but the quilt needed to go in that sack, and it was wet enough that I didn’t want to put it in with the clothes. I put my clothes in the sleeping pad pump sack (which was dry), and put my quilt in the compression sack. I put the soaking wet bra in a zip lock, and put it in with the quilt. 

The Ursack (bear bag) had about a quarter cup of water inside it, but my food was fine because it was zipped up in the odor proof bag inside the Ursack. 

I packed up the majority of my pack, then took it to the shelter. Then I took down my tent. The rain was tapering off, so it wasn’t that bad, except that the tent was really muddy on the outside. I really need to try not to set up on dirt when it’s going to rain. 

Anyway, I was ready to go at 9:15. Since we had 10.1 miles, and a pretty big mountain to climb, I took off ahead of everyone else so I could get to the next shelter, and dry out my stuff. Sure Foot left about 20 minutes after, and caught up to me just before Sam’s Gap (2.4 miles in). We hiked the rest of the day mostly together. 

Today’s big climb was Big Bald Mtn, but we had a few others to do too. Big Bald Mtn is, of course, a bald, but we had two other balds too, just not as high or as big. Here’s some photos...

Sam’s Gap where we returned to North Carolina...again. 

Grassy bald number one for the day. 

See the bald at the top? That’s Big Bald Mtn. The climbing began shortly after this photo. 

See the trail? No? Up the rocks. 

This is the top of Big Bald. If you zoom in, you can see the first grassy bald of the day. 

Lots of houses down there. 

Going down Big Bald (that’s Sure Foot), and soon going up the third bald of the day. 

And now for the last climb of the day to the third bald. 

Sure Foot and I arrived at Bald Mtn Shelter at 3:30ish. I immediately pulled all my wet stuff out and strung up my clothes line to get everything drying. Since it was sunny, everything managed to get dry (even the soaking wet bra). A few hours later, Primo arrived with Scruffy. He had left at noon. Boston and Veg arrived right at sunset. No Smiley tonight, but Primo had seen him at some point. 

It’s going to be cold tonight, but thankfully, no rain. There was a nice sunset.