May 13

Sardines

Got off to a bit of a late start.  Rainbow Eyes was hiking back to the road 2 miles, so he could meet his parents today.  Slims, Apache, and I had a nice morning hiking, crossing a few streams.  There was a particularly nice footbridge and tentsite at Lynn Camp creek, where we stopped for a short break.  We trudged up the climb over Lynn Camp Mountain.  Saw yet another black snake on the trail.  Early in the afternoon, we were coming up on a really long, big climb up Chestnut Ridge.  Near the top there was a small spring-fed pond, where we all filled up on water.  Then the grey clouds opened up and started dumping a cold rain on us.  Hooray.  We made the last mile or so up to Chestnut Knob shelter, where surprisingly there was plenty of bunk space left.  This shelter was really cool.  It actually had four walls, and a door.  And a picnic table inside, so we didn't have to cook out in the rain.  We all got settled, started dinners, and hikers started coming in one after another.  Apollo and Pops caught back up with us too, so that was awesome to see them again.  Thirsty had a bottle of Beam, and Pops had the bright idea of mixing it with hot chocolate.  Everyone chipped in hot chocolate packets from their food bags and water from their water bladders.  Crazily enough, Pops had a bag of marshmallows too.  So all of us in the shelter got to sip on hot chocolate and bourbon with marshmallows, dry and toasty in the shelter, while the rain poured on the roof, and the wind howled.  Awesome!  This shelter was only supposed to sleep 8, but we ended up with 18 hikers crammed in there, and 1 dog.  There was a hammock strung up, someone on the picnic table, someone under the table on the floor, and several others on the floor under the bunk platforms.  Pretty impressive.

Chestnut Knob shelter.