jerry's cabin shelter to nature's inn hostel

it snowed all night long, and all day. i’m pretty sure it was our coldest night yet as well. i think my sleeping pad was not quite enough, as i slept pretty cold. i lay in my tent not wanting to leave the relative warmth of my sleeping bag.

eventually i got up and opted to make breakfast in the shelter. bugs was already taking off, and rocket and quick left before i was done. i packed up my tent, struggling yo get it into it’s bag. i couldn’t get all the ice off, and so packed up it was larger than usual.

i put the bread bags i got at the hillbilly market over my socks and shoved my feet into frozen shoes. it’s the first time my shoes have actually been frozen. the bread bags worked beautifully all morning. i got to flint mountain shelter around 10:30 and my feet were still warm and dry. i had a snack and continued on.

i passed over big butt mountain, but sadly there was no view due to the weather.

unfortunately my bread bags didn’t do much more for me. one developed a big hole. the other didn’t, but slipped into my shoe. i’m not sure if my sock got wet from that, or sweat, but at that point i had to keep moving to keep them warm.

i passed a really cool cracked rock in the woods, but sadly, something got in the view just as i took the photo and i didn’t notice.

around lunch time i crossed rector laurel rd. where there was a short hike to a hostel. i wasn’t sure whether the rest of the gang went that way, but i opted not to, mostly because it said cash only, and i had only a handful of dollars. i continued up the hill, across a muddy field, and back into the woods where i discovered the tracks i had been following were now different. seems like the tramily went to the hostel.

i tried to look for a place to lunch, but nothing presented itself, so i just kept hiking. eventually i was close enough to hogback ridge shelter that it didn’t make sense to stop. eventually i got to the shelter and downed an avocado and a banana.

while i ate, a hiker by the name ‘neo’ was talking about hiking anothet 2.5 miles to sam’s gap and going to a hostel for the night. that sounded pretty good, so i also called and they had space available.

neo and i hiked the 2.5 miles in no time flat and were shortly picked up and shuttled to the hostel.

the bunk house was nothing particularly special. in fact it only had one tiny window, but each bunk had it’s own plug. the common area however was pretty sweet and included a wood burning stove. i took a shower, which sadly was luke warm, and then spent the rest of the afternoon in the common house.

i chatted with magz for a bit before cooking myself a pizza. all the while the snow continued outside and the temperature kept dropping. i stoked the fire up and chatted with a few hikers, neo, and name game. name game paid for laundry and offered folks space. i threw in my sodden socks. we chatted until pretty late hiker time, almost 21:00 before heading to bed.

some additional images from today: