Friday, October 15, 2010

AT Day 4

I wake up way earlier than I need to-just before 7. Other people are up and I don't like being asleep when others are awake around me. Freaks me out. However, the outfitters doesn't open until 9 or 10 and I have to wait until they're open so I can grab some extra food and get those rain pants. I twiddle my thumbs as others make their way out. It takes a while at the store too-I wanted to try on backpacks so I did that and that took a while. Eventually beat it out of there, heading for Low Gap shelter. Clouded over, but a beautiful day. I took a picture on the top of a hill and tweeted it. I descended to a gap where I see some other hikers-maybe I've met them?-huddled off in a corner, unrecognizable as well as some teens. I skirt them and continue on my way. To me, it seems odd, disquieting to see this paved road in the middle of nowhere. I wonder where the teens came from. I keep going up the hill, it switchbacks quite a bit, which i am very grateful for. After a while, I reach another road. Check my guidebook-from what I can interpret..there's another road in a ways a couple miles before the shelter. I keep going. And going. Where is the road?!

Finally, I come down one last hill and there is the shelter. Mis-read the guidebook. No road. just a gap. I pass a tent set up and find Big Sky, Myaaka & Silver all sitting in the shelter, in their sleeping bags. I hurriedly set mine up and shove my jacket on, turning to get water and then make my dinner at the picnic table (I didn't learn to appreciate them until they disappeared somewhere around Vermont. Almost like they don't exist north of massachusetts). Count is there eating his dinner-he's the one with the tent on the trail down to the shelter. I shiver, but eat my food-savoring the warmth of it.

Turns out Count's friend hurt his knee and had to leave the trail. The other one comes trailing in an hour or so later. The picnic sisters come in after, grousing about the money-hogging at Neel's Gap. I have to agree-they were definitely trying to sell what I didn't need (but-looking back, I should have gotten that backpack). We cram into the shelter, shoulder to shoulder hoping to keep warm. Very glad to have the dayhikers decide to tent rather than force us into an even more crowded situation. I like close warmth but I don't wanna get too friendly with these people I've barely met.

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