We woke up, luckily, in the bunkhouse at Uncle Johnny’s, because it was raining again this morning. We still were up and pretty much packed by 7am, had our breakfast of yogurt and mini bagels, and hit the trail.
It was a mostly uphill day, and we ended up doing 17.1 miles to Cherry Gap Shelter. This was our stretch goal for the day, and we hit it pretty easily. We even got a bit of trail magic at Indian Grave Gap, some lemonade and homemade brownies and banana bread. We’ve been pretty lucky with the trail magic these last few days.
It looked like it was going to rain this morning, but the early afternoon was really nice… hot even. However, the mid to late afternoon weather was not as kind. We hiked through some intermittent thunderstorms and showers. Nothing too crazy, but it was just off and on. The trail got a bit muddy and slick in a few spots, so we had to be a bit more careful after the rain. It’s supposed to rain again tonight, so we’ve decided to sleep in the shelter. It’ll be our first shelter since the smokies. Unfortunately this one is not quite as nice, but it’ll do if we don’t have to pack up a wet tent in the morning. Oh, it also turns out I left the paracord (rope we use to hang bear bags) at the hostel, but luckily someone had left behind some nylon string that we were able to use tonight. That’ll be coming with us to Damascus w
here we’ll replace the forgotten cord.
With today’s longer miles, I’ve got a relatively aggressive plan for the next few days, with our shortest day being just over the 16 miles. I’m now thinking we’ll be in Damascus by Wednesday next week.
