Day 57-Finally Some Warmth, and an Awesome View!

May 14-17.5 miles-Trent’s Grocery to Doc’s Knob Shelter-AT mile 627.7

Boy, it was hard getting up this morning! I could have definitely slept a couple more hours! Alas, we did not. With 17.5 miles to go (.5 was a road walk back to the trail), we needed to get going. 

Back on the trail, except for a short climb from the road, the first 8 miles were pretty easy. We crossed a bazillion streams 15 of which had footbridges. 

Yes, I counted them. These two were 4 and 5. 

There were several that didn’t have bridges. Some required fancy footwork to avoid water, and mud. But, overall, the terrain was fairly flat. There was even this nice pond. 

It didn’t have a name that I know of. 

At the base of the one big climb, I stopped for lunch and to let Sure Foot catch up. We had a nice leisurely lunch under the canopy of rhodies next to a stream that we filled up our water bottles. A few hikers went by, one of which was Siddhartha! He must be back to doing big miles (he said his foot is feeling great). Everyone that went by was going to Woods Hole Hostel. We were going further to Doc’s Knob Shelter. 

The climb after lunch was not easy. It was steep, but worse, it was like walking up a dry stream bed. At least it was dry. At the top, things leveled off some. We eventually came to a view of the Wilburn Valley. 

This was one of the best views we’ve seen in a long time. We stood out on these rocks. 

Precipice of death for sure!

For the most part, the rest of the miles to the shelter was a mass of rocks...big ones, little ones, and everything in between. 

Sometimes the trail looks like it’s been paved with these rocks. Don’t let the looks of it fool you...these rocks move. 

This was a lovely adventure climbing down these rocks. I had to throw my poles to the bottom, and use my hands to get down. 

An example of big slabs of rocks. Some of these also move!

Needless to say, it was very slow going! The more tired I got, the more I would trip and stumble on the rocks. Your whole body takes a beating negotiating the rocks. You have to constantly watch where you step. If you want to look around, you have to come to a complete stop. I felt bad for Sure Foot. As much as I was not enjoying the rocks, it was agony for him. The rocks were really hard on his already painful shin. 

The weather, however, was nice. The stinky pink shirt got to come out today. Oh, we had a few moments of sprinkles in the morning, but the sun came out, and it was in the 70s the remainder of the day. In fact, climbing up, there was a fair amount of sweating going on! It felt good to sweat because it was actually warm out, instead of because we had to wear rain gear. There was talk of thunderstorms possibly arriving by 6 or 7, but so far that hasn’t happened (it’s almost 9:00pm). 

I arrived at the shelter just before 5:00. Sure Foot was about 20 minutes behind me. We thought we did pretty good considering the tough afternoon. 

Donatello just walked in. He says Music Man is right behind him. There are also two other section hikers, R dot, and Hermit. We enjoyed talking with them over dinner. They have just a couple more days.