Another long day, as has become the norm. Left camp by 8:30am. Hiked uphill (how am I still so miserably slow on uphills?). It was so hot - and my shorts are in Erwin - so I stripped down to my compression shorts and was very comfortable. Sorry, fellow hikers.
Got to the Little Laurel Shelter and saw a note about the hiker virus: "puke and feces everywhere in and near the shelter". Yeah...not going anywhere near that place. The forest service had issued an alert that norovirus was affecting hikers between Hot Springs and Erwin, and that hikers should avoid the shelters, privys, and (generally) all contact. There were all sorts of hiker rumors about people getting sick left and right. So we got water (and treated it, as usual), and ate lunch nearby with Goat, BearCub, and Sriacha (who is on his second bottle).
OWL called with a surprise - the forest service had closed the trail a few miles before the Jerry's Cabin shelter (our destination for the night), and was shuttling people around to Big Butt Mountain. I didn't ask why - assumed it was because of the hiker virus. So after a leisurely lunch we had to hike hard to get to the shuttle point.
We got to the Jones Meadow campsite and I was surprised to see so many people there. They said that the trail was closed due to a controlled burn, and that the FS was allowing people to camp right where they closed the trail but there wasn't any water. They also said that the FS *was* running shuttles around, but that you had to hike 5 miles up Big Butt Mountain to return to the AT.
That didn't sound like much fun, but I wanted to catch up to OWL. So I loaded my 3L nalgene water carrier, and my 2L camelback, and my 1L nalgene...yes, 6L of water at 2.4lbs per L...and started the 1.5 mile hike. Got to a trail intersection and saw a walkie talkie on the ground. So I stopped and waited for a few minutes - sure enough a ranger came by and said the trail was closed. They actually brought up a bunch of water for the folks who were camped there...ah well, I would rather be prepared (with extra water for my friends) than dependent on the kindness of rangers.
Set up camp next to OWL, Old Goat, M80 (who received his name when he threw a firecracker at a bear...the bear dropped his food bag and ran away), his wife Trooper, and their dog Willow. Took forever to eat my dinner...I wasn't very hungry but food is fuel. Had a celebratory nip of scotch for our 300 mile mark. Watched the sunset and went to sleep.
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