thunder hill shelter to punchbowl shelter

i woke up pretty early despite the rain. there was a pause, and i took the opportunity to try and get on trail before it started again. i went out of the shelter to grab my food bag from the bear box (this shelter was one of the very few that had one) and i swung by maestro’s tent to see if he was awake. he was, but was planning on sitting there till a break in the weather at 9. i informed him it wasn’t actually raining (it was only dripping), and he opted to get up. we made breakfast and were on trail by 06:45.

i decided to motor to try and catch up to bugs and lyric, but told maestro i’d wait for him at the shelter 2 miles from town. i covered the 12+ miles in under 4 hours, but didn’t catch up to bugs or lyric.

i waited at the shelter for almost 45 minutes before maestro made it. he had a snack and we walked the 2 miles to the road, crossing a sizeable river just before the road. we stuck out our thumbs and the third car that passed stopped and shuttled us to town.

glasgow is a unique town in that it has a shelter for hikers. we headed there and found bugs and lyric. we dropped our packs and headed to scotto’s for food.

over food we learned why we didn’t catch up to bugs and lyric. they had hiked the 3 miles to the campsite, been unimpressed, and decided to hike another 3 miles, where they just decided to finish the 12 to the shelter, where they arrived at 12:30. wow. and no thank you.

over lunch, bugs and lyric talked me into a 25 mile day. maestro planned to stay in town because some folks were planning on shuttling to a movie theater to see dr. strange.

lyric and i did a quick resupply while a former thru-hiker with a caravan waited to take us back to the trail. when we entered the camper, we were offered yeungling, which we gladly accepted.

the afternoon was rough. it was pretty much a 10 mile climb, exacerbated by a heavy newly resupplied pack. i picked a pretty quick pace and took off.

near the top, there was a bit of flatness and i had some cell service and called magz. i needed to hear her voice for a cheer up. hiking on a gloomy, rainy day gets to me after a while. it definitely worked, and when i reached the top of the climb, the trail smoothed out and i found myself jogging down the other side for the last few miles.

i got to the shelter, and it was right next to a pond with tons of peepers! there was even some space left. i put out my stuff and dove into dinner, a sub i packed up from scotto’s.

some additional images from today: