Wow, adding 15 lbs of food and water really weighs you down! I had a really hard time saying goodbye to AWE. I am going to miss her so much. My feet hurt. My knees hurt. I am scared of the unknown. But once we got going it was okay.
We had some really weird weather. It was pretty windy so we had our rain gear on. When we were getting ready to head up yet another mountain, we ran into a group of 2 guys and a girl running down the mountain. The guy had a HUGE backpack on and I was so astounded by the size of it that I didn't really notice when he said "there's ice up there". I just thought - yeah - ice - whatever. But when we got about half mile up we saw what he meant. The trees were spitting ice at us. Not hail. Not sleet. But 1-2 inch long cylindrical pieces of ice. We just plowed through it as fast as possible. When we reached the summit, suddenly the ice stopped. It was blue skies and perfect weather on one side of the summit, and blowing wind and ice on the other. So weird.
We originally were debating between staying at the shelter (4 miles) or camping 6.3 miles in. When we got to the campsite we decided we felt well enough to keep going to the campsite at Bly Gap - just inside the North Carolina border!
On the way to the border we heard a guy playing a mandolin behind us. He followed us for about 2 miles. Kinda nice at first but then it felt like I was in an Indian-style blair witch project flick. Dude doesn't have a tent but he has a ukelele and (we found out later) jeans and a nice shirt for town. He is just staying shelter to shelter. HYOH (hike your own hike).
Feet feel ok. It was nice to get texts from people all day - AWE knew I was feeling apprehensive about the day and had people send little encouragements throughout the day. Pretty nice to feel the support from everyone.
P.s. what is causing this blue wood I see everywhere? Don't think it is pine beetle...I am not a tree expert but can't tell what kind of wood it is.
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