Days 13 and 14-100 Miles and an April Fool’s Joke

Day 13
Today was an exciting day, as we were to climb to our first tower and also cross the 100 mile mark. The majority of the day wasn’t too bad except it rained for about 3/4 of the day. Fortunately, when we got to the toughest part of the day, the climb up Albert Mtn, the sun had come out. While the climb up Albert Mtn was only .4 miles, it was the toughest .4 so far. 

This is zoomed in. 


Follow the white blazes straight up the rocks!

I was so happy to get to the tower at the top! The top is not exactly the 100 mile mark, but it is the symbolic 100 mile mark. 



Flat Will looks happy too. 

Here’s some views from the top. 




We climbed up the tower. You can’t actually go all the way to the top because there are weather instruments in the top part. 

As far as one can go. 


Continuing down from the mountain, we came to the actual 100 mile mark. 

100 miles according to Guthook. 

The first stick mile marker. 

We hustled on down to Longbranch Shelter. It had clouded up again, and I had this mantra going in my head...gotta beat the rain. The tent sites at Longbranch left much to be desired. I did manage to get my tent set up before the rain started. 

It’s a bit of a slope!

We settled in for a cold night. Little did we know how cold...

Day 14-Mother Nature’s April Fool’s Joke
Winter is over...April Fools! We woke up to frozen snow/sleet covering the ground and our tents. 



Cold!

We packed up as quickly as our freezing selves could muster, and headed down the trail. Nothing like hiking to warm a body up! 

Poor frozen rhodies!

As we descended, we came out of the snow, but then we’d climb right back into it. 

Frosty trees. 
We finally came out to Winding Stair Gap. There was a car parked. It was a guy named Jimmy. He shuttles hikers into Franklin. We said we were hiking on through. He gave us each a banana. We wolfed down the bananas, and got back out of sight on the trail. 

About another mile up the trail, we came to Moore Creek campsite. I said to Sure Foot that maybe we should consider staying there instead of going up to Siler Bald Shelter. It was supposed to be another cold night, and it would likely be even colder the higher we were. So, we called it a day after 8 miles at about 2:45. It was a good idea, and I was even able to do a little housekeeping chores. 







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