Day 29: Peck's Corner Shelter to Cosby Knob Shelter

12.9 miles (+.5 miles from the shelter)

Actually got up and moving at the same time as OWL today. Woohoo!

The Peck's Corner shelter is .5 miles off the trail, so I had a little warm up hike before the hike for the day began. The hike was pretty tough at first - for the first 6 miles. Very slick and icy. Old goat had a very spectacular fall. He slipped on an ice-covered rock, onto ice-covered trail, then started slipping off the mountain. He would have fallen off the mountain except that he hung onto a little tiny 6" tree, did a complete 360, and sat down. Awesome and scary at the same time. If he didn't already have a trail name, he would have been Pole Dancer for sure.

Once the trail dropped below 4000 feet, the ice and snow disappeared. It was amazing to be hiking on DIRT again!

Met a loud mouthed section hiker, "Trail Boss", with three kids of varying age. Talked to me FOREVER and slowed down my hustle to the shelter. (It's important to get to the shelter ASAP - slots are first come first serve, and there are only 4 slots for thru hikers). Finally two other hikers came up and tried to pass us, so he started talking to them and I took off. Got to the shelter about 4:30 and was #3 in the shelter, so set up. Very nice to be there.

Trail Boss was sort of an asshole all night. Got to the shelter about 6:30pm and announced "we have reservations so some of you guys are going to have to get out". (Keep in mind, there were only 5 thru hikers in the shelter at the time because we knew they were coming). Really a jerk about it even though there was plenty of room.

HAHA an older thru hiker (who I am not going to name) just asked OWL if I was her son! HAHA. OWL said "who? No SHE is only 10 years younger than I am"....

Also I was changing into my sleeping clothes, but kept my balaclava on, and OWL says "now I know what a naked ninja looks like!".

Finished off the scotch. That helps. :)