Carter Gap Shelter (4/9/10)

Friday morning started out pretty rough because of the rain/cold that I mentioned in the previous post. My shoe laces were frozen - as were my socks. The only way to dry those out was going to be to just put them on and let my body warm them up - and that's what happened, although it took a couple hrs.

The big mtn for the day was Standing Indian Mtn. This would be the first time above 5000 ft for the trail. Maybe it was because we were already up pretty high, but the climb didn't seem all that bad. Once you get to the top of Standing Indian mtn, it's a pretty nice hike. It's a long mtn and the trail just follows the ridge line and then slowly descends.

The rest of the day was really nice. The inclines were pretty easy and the weather was warm without being too warm. After a few more hours, I got to Carter Gap shelter. It was a little confusing at first, though, because when the trail comes to the shelter sign, you can see a shelter but it's really run-down and if you look inside, you'll see a pretty big hole in the floor. It turns out that that was the old shelter, and that there was a new, better version of the shelter a 100 ft down the trail.

From AT 2010

After I got to the shelter and started settling in, a bunch of familiar faces poured in. Lorod was there when I got there, and then a girl from Maine came in (Mary Ellen/Beth?) along with Funky Monkey and a British guy with a name I can't remember. Then came a couple of guys I had met the day before at Plum Orchard (Legend and Fox?). After everyone had set up their tents and made dinner, Prometheus and a couple other guys built a fire and we all set around talking for the next few hrs. There was a guy going sobo to Hiawassee in a kilt who was a paramedic who was recounting all of the (mostly disgusting, sometimes amusing) scenes he's come upon in the line of duty.

The british guy had run into a ranger earlier that day who told him that the temp that night would get down into the twenties, so I was preparing for another rough night. I would sleep in my hammock that night, so I was a little concerned about cold temps on my back. Maybe an hr or so after the sun set, it started to get cold - so as soon as I summoned the motivation, I made a dash from the warm fire towards my hammock. Once I got inside, everything was pretty good - although I would wake a couple times that time right on the verge of shivering.

Once, I woke up needing to pee really bad and it took me probably 20 minutes before I could work up the resolve to get out of my warm sleeping bag. I'm trying to work on peeing before going to bed now - there's nothing worse that having to wake up in the middle of the night and leave your warm sleeping bag.