Miles today: 14.9
Total miles: 1420.2
While the distance we travelled today was pretty short and easy, it was almost entirely uphill. Virginia had these long, drawn out mountains so unlike in Maine or NH, where the trail goes straight up a mountain in a mile or two, in Virginia there are endless switchbacks and five to seven mile climbs up mountains. It’s not terrible, but it can get tedious especially when it’s a series of mountains like it was today.
It was chilly again today all day but at least it was sunny. While Delta and I were taking a break Delta heard a noise and we turned to see an adorable bear cub walk by probably 25 yards away. It didn’t even notice us so we got to see it just walking around downhill down the mountain. My first actual bear sighting! Finally.
I was pretty nervous because the forecast low overnight was 26 degrees. And that is in the valley, in town. The shelter we were staying at was at 4000 feet. I was slightly nervous I’d die of hypothermia. But it’s stuff like this that makes the trail exciting, right?!
We got to the shelter around 530 and it was so cold we could already see our breath even though the sun hadnt even gone down yet. It was kind of windy too. Delta and I then tried to construct a kind of fortress against the elements. All the shelters are three walled—they have an open face so the wind gets in easily. We used our tent rain flys and hung them to create a fourth wall. Ingenious plan. Until ten minutes later as we sat in our still cold fortress and then saw a mouse run by. Great, we’d created a sealed off barrier against the wind that at the same time locked us in with the mice
We ended up giving up tht plan and set up our tents instead. Supposedly tents are supposed to be ten degrees warmer than the outside air. We shall see how that works out. If I survive. Mwahaha.