Day 45: The icehouse

Hiked 23.0 miles, tenting at Chestnut Knob shelter.

Today we saw the first sunrise in over a week!  We woke up and the sky was actually clear enough to see the sun.  This definitely put a bounce in everyone's step.

Shady informed us yesterday that the trains do come past the building.  During the day we certainly heard them but luckily none came through at night while we were there because it was certainly loud.  Shady told us about this fifty year old man who stayed there and leaped out of bed screaming in the middle of the night because he thought the train was coming right at him.  The tracks are right behind the building and I  can it is crazy the way the sound echos and really does sound like the train is coming through the building.

Leaving Atkins via pasture walking

Shady joined us for breakfast and then shuttled us back to the trail.  We crossed under our fourth interstate right off the bat, I-81.  All of us had finally gotten our shoes and socks dry and this lasted all of thirty seconds as we encountered more of the same mud asking with tall grass with heavy dew leaving Atkins.   Well it was nice having dry feet during breakfast at least...

Today's miles were tough.  No huge mountains for most of the day but it still consisted of a lot of steep 600 foot climb followed by a steep 600 foot descent, rinse and repeat.  Given the distance I would say it is one of our tougher days, or maybe I've just gotten weak from all the recent easy terrain we've had. 

9 AM photo

We had a nice mix of woods and field today.  In fact fourteen of our miles today were composed of easements across private land.  What this meant was in some places was a small strip of woods about ten feet across with a fence and pasture on either side.  Other times we wandered through the fields themselves.  There were stiles everywhere in this section because we were going over a lot of fences.  I felt like I was in a boot camp obstacle course because of all the ladders I had to climb up and over.

Farmland on either side of the trail

Some thru hiker had left a skull to sign

We ate lunch on top of the hill to the left

We did an early lunch in the middle of one of the fields we were crossing.  The middle of the field was up on a hill and we got decent 360 degree views while we ate.  After lunch we came upon some trail magic left by a local.  We saw Monk, Coach, Trouble and Donnie there and Coach actually met the trail angel that left the magic.  He had left PB&J sandwiches and soda and apparently he restocks the cooler every day and makes about 1000 sandwiches every year!

Photo from the top of the rise in the distance of the previous picture

My camera did something funky when stitching but it is still a pretty cool photo

Today we had one of the hardest finishes to a day yet.  After hiking nineteen miles, already a long day, we had to finish by climbing a 2000 foot incline.  On top of that a thunderstorm moved in while we were still at least three miles from the shelter and proceeded to dump torrential downpour on us for about an hour.  We did get a little lucky though in that when we were a mile from the shelter and on top of an exposed ridgeline the thunderstorm paused and the sky cleared for a little bit, giving us a great view of the surrounding ridges.

Scary looking spider under the picnic table, about the diameter of a baseball!

The shelter we are at tonight is an old icehouse and is one of the few shelters on the AT to have doors and windows.  I decided to tent though as I am tired of sleeping in shelters and want my own space for once.  It also helped make my decision that it was already fairly full and the current occupants must have smoked ten packs of cigarettes inside.  This is one thing I don't understand.  Tons of people on the trail brag about their vegan or healthy diet and then proceed to smoke a pack a night.  There are more young smokers on the trail than I encounter in normal life.  It is really unfortunate.

The thunderstorm pauses momentarily to give us a view

Yes, Why Not hikes with an umbrella in the rain