2017 Appalachian Hike

The weather today was cooler, which actually made it pretty pleasant for hiking. I’m pretty sure it was in the 30s this morning because my fingers started getting cold. 

I started out thinking I was going to take a short easy day. Boy did that backfire. I started later today and figured I would hike to the shelter 8.1 miles away. I hiked about five miles with a young girl whose trail name is Bruce. Her friends say she is a die hard climbing the hills because she doesn’t take breaks. So evidently Bruce Willis was in the movie die hard. Hence the name Bruce. 

Anyway we got to the shelter at 2:00 and I didn’t feel like stopping yet. The weather was perfect so I decided I would go on to Betty’s Creek and camp there. We’ll, when I got there I found that area to be closed to camping so I had to push on to Long Branch and ended the day with over seventeen miles. 

I took some great pictures but may not post them here today. I’m trying to conserve phone battery life because I couldn’t charge it today. My solar charger doesn’t work so well when the sun is setting. The last two days I’ve been going through some areas that were affected by the fires last year. 

The climb up Mt Albert was very difficult and treacherous. I found it a little scary. It was a long fall if you lost your footing and I was alone at this time. The view was worth the climb though. The campsite I’m at tonight has a group of four dads hiking with their seven sons. The boys look to be between about 12-17. They are hiking for five days. Then there are five other thru hikers here.   We had a nice fire tonight but I only stayed by it for about fifteen minutes. I’m tired. 

I officially have a trail name now. Because I’ve been wearing my GOATz shirt and it’s red, I’ve been named Red Goat. 

Tonight it’s supposed to get down into the low 30s. 

Bonus! I got enough of a signal to call Amy.