4-07-2009 Tue - More Snow!

Start point: Carter Gap Shelter
End point: Winding Stairs Gap
miles hiked: 16
There was a couple inches of snow when I got up this morning. Some estimates were it got down to close to 20 degrees over the course of the night. It got down to 27 in Franklin, and they say you can usually take 10 degrees off that if you're in the mountains. It was a bit of a pain packing up my tent in freezing conditions, it hurts when your fingers freeze! Lots of snow on the trail, this is not good conditions for hiking in trail runners. Hiked about 10 miles in the snow before I got to parts of the trail where it had already melted. I hiked all the way to the gap and then got a ride to Franklin, NC. It's supposed to get to 27 degrees tonight so I wanted to get in a nice hot room, I'm just not prepared gear wise for this kind of cold. Hopefully this is the last cold snap, I'm ready for spring!! It seems like I just keep getting bombarded with this unfavorable weather. I thought after my first 3 days of rain and fog I had proved myself, like the trail is trying to weed out those not ready for this. So now I survived snow and a night of freezing conditions, whats next I wonder, a plague? Is a solid week of sun too much to ask!? ;) So I don't think I should have pushed on and done those 16 miles, I started to feel a hot spot on my right heel and stopped to bandage it, but I guess I didn't do a good enough job because when I got to town and checked, it did not look good. Rubbed a spot raw, not a blister, just missing a couple layers of skin. Gonna stay in town another night tomorrow (Wed) and get back out on the trail Thur morning. These pics below were taken just a few miles away from the shelter. The pic above was taken right outside the shelter.


In this one below you are looking down the trail, that white mark on the tree is one of the white blazes that marks the trail.