corliss camp to bear hollow shelter

miles: 15.8

last night was pretty rough in the shelter. it reminded me why i am in general not interested in sleeping in them. what i can’t figure out is why i keep forgetting. perhaps the convenience of not setting up a tent sometimes outweighs the memories of shelters.

i went to bed pretty early. other folks stayed up a bit later. even before i closed my eyes i heard mice in the ceiling. i had hung everything that wasn’t next to me in my bunk, so i had little to worry about. lemon and chai came in and got in their bunks, it’s completely impossible to be quiet with all the synthetic fabrics, zippers, and inflatable sleeping pads. chai’s was particularly loud. about 5 minutes after the noise subsided, a mouse rolled what i can only assume was a nut across the ceiling and apparently dropped it somewhere. then later a mouse got into lemon’s bag and was chewing. i had to turn on my light and tell lemon it was in her pack. she hung her pack, and with the sounds of someone running their fingers across three simultaneous balloons, we all went back to bed. then chai is up again because a mouse managed to jump into another person’s food bags that were hung too close to the table. then one by one we all had to go and pee. eventually there was snoring and the every 8 minutes ballon noise of someone rolling over. there isn’t anything inconsiderate here, in fact lemon and chai were as quiet as they could be. they even had red lights on their headlamps, it’s just the nature of shelter sleeping.

needless to say, it was a rough start to the morning. lemon’s alarm went off, and she silenced it. about 10 minutes later i got going. it was cold and i wanted a few more minutes of warmth. i did my best to be quiet, but again, there is no way to stuff a sleeping bag into a DCF bag quietly, and it’s even more noisy when i stuff that into my crinkly backpack.

i got off a bit late, just before 07:00hr. i climbed laraway mountain. there isn’t really a view there, but the laraway lookout .4 mile later is fantastic, even if i didn’t see any peregrine falcons today.

a long descent down laraway mountain and then up and over a no-name mountain and down to plot road. i met a couple NOBO hikers there, and my first trail magic (of the non-spontaneous sort). a box of pop tarts left at the road crossing! now, i hate pop tarts. they’re barely food, but i was hungry and devoured 2 packs.

back on trail, and up and over round top, passing round top shelter. there were two more NOBO hikers there.

i kept on hiking down the other side past the maple syrup farm to prospect rock.

i ran into talks to clouds who is now hiking with her son. she was moving along pretty well. i suspect she’ll be done in a few days.

hiking further, my left ankle started hurting pretty badly by the time i got to hogback road. this is the same place my knee started acting up, so i limped the same mile, past the stealth campsite from 5 days ago. it’s a particularly beautiful mile though.

i crossed rt 15 and snapped two photos i had wished i had hiking with webster on the way up, a rock and a huge mushroom right next to the trail.

i crossed a hay field on the way to a bike path it reminded me of jae. i miss him.

then i hiked up the bike trail for an extra .2 or so after the trail turned off to go to johnson hardware and rental. the place was huge. half hardware store, half outdoor outfitter. 5 NOBO hikers were outside, two i’d seen before who asked about the yo-yo, and the upcoming terrain for them.

i plugged in all my stuff outside and went in for lunch. slim pickings. essentially energy bars. i don’t mind energy bars, but they aren’t lunch. i bought some anyway and ate them outside while i figured out how far i had to go before the next resupply.

i went back in and bought $100+ of freeze dried breakfasts, dinners, and energy bars. yikes!

i headed back to the trail, after attaching my hip belt to my pack for the first time this trip.

the trail then has a 3 mile road walk. the road gradually turns rougher and eventually is a single track again, then it’s 1 more mile to bear hollow shelter.

my ankle enjoyed the rest at the hardware store, and the road walk had me dreaming of passing bear hollow, but as soon as i hit the trail again, it was bad. i decided to quit at bear hollow and soak my ankle in the cold stream.

two NOBO through hikers showed up a little later. apparently they ditched their tent and only sleep in shelters. :cringe:

dinner: mountain house beef stroganoff. verdict: great. hot, 600 calories. needs hot sauce.

some additional photos from today: