April 5

No room in the inn

Everyone slept in intentionally and missed the 9am shuttle, to catch the 11am shuttle later.  I however, got up around 630, and waited in front of the motel for a van that would pick hikers up and take them to the First Baptist Church in town for an AYCE pancake breakfast.  The food was great!  Y's Guy was behind the line cooking bacon too.  He had been in town for breakfast there yesterday, and dinner too, so he thought he'd come help the kitchen staff out this morning, haha.  We were dreading the climb out of the gap where the shuttle dropped us off around noon, but it wasn't that bad.  We passed a sign on the trail for 'Swinging Lick Gap', but someone had turned the 'L' into a 'D', and that was hilarious at the time.  We got up to Siler Bald, and decided not to stop at the shelter since it was 0.5 miles off on a side trail.  There wasn't much of a bald there to speak of either, and the AT didn't even go over the summit, so that was disappointing.  We came down into a gap and took a break for a bit, then pushed on up Wayah Bald.  At the top, there wasn't really a bald here either, just a road leading to a parking area and a strange circle of rocks.  Nearby, just a bit further down the AT, there was a great observation tower.  A stone structure that used to be used as a fire tower.  Great views for 360 degrees all around.  According to the displays posted in the tower, on a clear day you could see over 60 miles away northward to Clingman's Dome in the Smokies, and over 110 miles away southeastward to Greenville, SC!  We pushed on to the Wayah shelter a mile away.  It was packed.  Dozens of hikers coming out of town had created another bottleneck effect.  We couldn't find level tenting.  Rocket Man didn't care since he had a hammock.  We all set up our tents inches from the trail in the most level ground we could find.  In the middle of the night it started thundering and raining again.  I kept rolling into my tent's wall, so I packed up everything before the rain kicked in too hard, and set up in another location.  Rocket Man didn't have a rainfly for his hammock, so he packed up and hiked somewhere down the trail in the dark.  Worst night's sleep on the trail yet.

Wayah Bald.