Handsome Devil. Nice view.
Pace Car, Navigator, Vegan and I left camp around 9am. Our goal for the day was 15.3 miles. If we did that, we could camp at a shelter with water and have a short 4 mile hike to the road, and then hitch into the town of Franklin, NC for resupply the next morning. It was a clear, cool day in the mid forties. The trail started with a gradual switch back up to the nicest view so far. We stopped and snapped some photos. It was pleasant hiking, and in the afternoon we found ourselves at the base of Albert Mountain. After a gradually steepening trail at the bottom, It was a straight up, hand over hand climb to the top. On the summit was a rickety old lookout tower. The winds were insane and a few times it got scary on the climb up, but overall it really just a lot of fun. We took a short break at the base of the tower. Then we continued the last 6 miles to the shelter. This was my first time hiking over 15 miles in a day, and it felt good to break through that barrier. I also realized when hiking that far, my legs would get heavy and tired. This caused me to stumble quite a few times in the last couple of miles. When we arrived at the shelter, it was empty and there was a small stream flowing next to it. We could see that there were camp spots about 100 yards below, so we all trekked down to set up our tents. The forest was beautiful, tall straight leafless trees and no underbrush. We set camp in some very high winds. I had to find a couple of rocks to put on the corners of the tent to keep it from blowing away.
Our windy campsite below Rock Spring Gap Shelter.
As we were finishing up getting our camp together, some hikers came by to tell us about trail magic in the gap. We hiked down there to check it out. There we found “Nature’s Own” and his buddy again. There were about 7 or eight other hikers, besides the fellas in our group. There was grill set up with hotdogs, and there was beer and whiskey. The hot food was satisfying and it warmed my belly to have a little booze. But the cherry on top was not having to cook and clean all of our cooking gear. With full stomachs full and the wind whipping around our camp making ghostly howls, I slept great that night.
Smooth's Appalachian Trail Thru-Hike 