All night the wind howled by Chestnut Knob Shelter where I was trying to sleep. The problem was the shelter is at the very top of the mountain and is actually the old cabin used by he fire lookout personnel. They sealed off the fireplace and called it an Appalachian shelter. It was nice that it was completely enclosed but frustrating in that the ripping wind would blow the door open only to have the spring on it slam it closed. It was like having your front door slam every half hour all night long. Eventually around 2am I got up and used a string hanging from the ceiling and the bloom handle to tie the door shut. I worked for the most part and I finally got a little quality sleep. I woke up and put my breakfast in my pockets to eat while hiking that morning and discovered my least favorite problem. Worse than even running out of food. I found that all I had left to walk the 20 miles to my resupply was 6 bars. They are dark chocolate granola bars from Costco that I ate while climbing all the Colorado 14ers this summer and am so sick of them I have to spend half a mile preparing to eat them before I can take a bite. It would be enough to eat, but it would not be fun to eat. On the trail, eating is one of the best times of the day and these bars ruined that for me today. I hiked hard through the morning and about 11 miles in I met the White Walkers. They are brother who are walking with two white dogs who are sisters. Hence the name. I made it into town, resupplied and am back out on the trail with an incredibly heavy pack. I didn’t get a full charge in my phone in town but I figured since I use it so little (basically only to write these posts) it shouldn’t be an issue. I made it back to the trail and made it to the first shelter where I had a good evening hanging out with the white walkers. These may be some of the last true thru hikers that I meet on this trail so I decided to cut my day a little short and enjoy telling stories and having a fire. Tomorrow I need to eat real well in order to try to lighten my load.
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