April 17

Attention passengers this is your captain speaking

Had a good night's sleep in the bunk house and I was up pretty early.  Good thing I got in early yesterday to claim a spot, as many other hikers had pulled in throughout the day, filling the bunk house and cabin.  One guy slept on the porch.  It was tough to leave the snack laden comfort of Standing Bear, but the trail isn't going to hike itself, so off I went.  Today started with a lot of climbing.  Up, and up, for almost 5 continuous miles, gaining 2400 feet up to the summit of Snowbird Mnt.  Took a break there with Truckin', next to an FAA control tower.  Pretty cool to see this fenced in structure out in the middle of nowhere on top of some mountain.  Views were great, mountains all around.  Took a lunch break at Groundhog Creek shelter, and ran into Tink and Apollo again.  They were planning a zero day there at the shelter to rest up for a "marathon" day into Hot Springs.  A marathon is named such for being a hike of exactly 26.2 miles - marathon distance.  Loosely it can also refer to any big mileage day.  The privy at the shelter was in view of the shelter, and looked like it was built for kids.  The walls didn't come up very high, so you had to pull your pants up quick when you stood up so you didn't moon everyone.  This topic provided lots of laughs.  Clouds were beginning to roll into the area this afternoon, and before long, they opened up into a cold rain.  Ups and downs, but mostly ups, took us to the base of Max Patch, where we ran into Joe again.  He was under his tarp waiting on a ride, suffering from ankle problems.  Hope he's on the mend and back on the trail soon.  I've been looking forward to Max Patch for the entire hike, and I had wanted to tent on the summit, but that wasn't in the cards today.  Totally socked in with fog, and a bone chilling wind and rain, there was no choice but to speed walk across the massive bald as fast as we could to the cover of the tree line on the other side.  I'll have to come back sometime to see it under clear skies.  We made it to Roaring Fork shelter right at dark, doing 15.1 miles.  Not a bad day.

Dreary day  on Max Patch.