Thursday, March 28, 2013

Day 7, miles today- 11.8, total- 81.4

Today started great, but ended not so great.
I woke up at 7am indoors, on a mattress, and with a pillow. At 8:15 the hostel host served the ten backpackers breakfast. It was an excellent meal. I even had seconds. While we were eating it started snowing.   At 9:30 Gary gave us a ride back to the trail, 3.4 miles away.
Soon after I was back on trail there was maybe an inch of snow on the ground. It looked beautiful with all of the branches trimmed in white. The higher in elevation I got the heavier the snow got.
When I got to 78.5 miles I was at the GA-NC border.  One state down, thirteen to go!
The sustained wind was back. The snow/ice pellets were blowing horizontal.  I kept my head down as I hiked. When I looked up the pellets stung my face. When I had 3-4 miles left I decided I needed to eat something so that I'd have the energy to get up and over the mountain. I got behind the root mass of a fallen tree to escape the wind for a short break. As I got closer to the top the wind became even more fierce. I kept my head down following the foot prints from other hikers. I felt like I was in survival mode. There was a white stripe the length of the trees from the wind driven snow.  After I had reached the top and started down I was protected from the wind, the snow was now coming straight down.
When I reached the shelter I joined the four other guys already there.  By 6:15 we were all in our sleeping bags. The wind, snow,and cold temperatures were brutal.

1 comment:

  1. Jeff, That breakfast looks awesome. Thought you'd lose a bunch of weight hiking 6-15 miles everyday but with meals like that I may be wrong. Hopefully the weather will turn for you soon and continued success on your adventure. Pat Shea

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for following me on my journey, and for your comment.

Thanks, Jeff, aka Blazer

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