Psalms 1 - 41
Unaka mountain campsite to Hughes Gap campsite - 15.8 miles hiked today - 373.4 total AT miles hiked.
Today I started Psalms in my daily Bible reading. After listening to all of David’s praises, laments, and calls for protection (and vengeance), it was such a blessing to get to Psalm 23, arguably one of the best known passages. Out here on the trail, it’s easy to relate to, as He truly does have me lie down in green pastures and leads me beside still waters. He does restore my soul.
The morning broke clear and very cold. At 7 am as the sun was rising, it was a chilly 18 degrees. Fortunately I was prepared this time for these type of conditions and secured my water filter, electronics, and my shoes where they wouldn’t freeze. I slept well except that my patch job on my pad didn’t hold. Fortunately I had the backup foam pad which will suffice for the short term. I’ll be picking up a new pad at the next outfitter we come across. Other than that I was toasty warm until I had to crawl out of my sleeping bag to break camp.
Packing all my belongings into my pack, and heading out around 8, it was like entering a frozen wonderland straight out of Frozen. I expected to see Anna, Elsa, and Olaf pass by any time. The snow that had fallen day before yesterday was now a sparkling crust covering the forest. As the sun rose in the sky, at times it was hard to see the ground as the sun reflected off of the snow covered hillsides. Formerly muddy paths were now hard crusted trails, easy to hike over.
The morning passed quickly as the day continued to warm up, eventually getting into the low 50’s. There were a few steep climbs, but for the most part, the trail followed a winding course along the ridge lines, with more gradual ups and downs. We stopped for lunch about 6 miles in and had our sandwiches on a fallen log. We saw several other thru hikers we knew as the day progressed, including Firewalker who had camped with us the night we slept in the controlled burn.
By 3:30 we had reached our initial destination at Clyde Smith Shelter. We’d done 13 miles, but since it was early and the day was so nice, we decided to hike on for another hour and a half. We hiked up and over Little Rock Knob (4918 ft), were there were some spectacular views of the valley below and the mountains beyond. From there, we hiked down into Hughes Gap and found a campsite by around 5. Set up, dinner, and bed followed after updating this blog. Tomorrow we inch closer to Elk Park (20 miles or so away) where rumor has it there is an outfitter who can replace some of the worn out equipment we are lugging with us. The AT is definitely tough on gear and shoes.
Until next time...
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