Day 2

After a light drizzle last night, we woke to clearing skies and sunshine. Oh, and bugs.

Spoke a lot with Turtle from Virginia. He offered to help any thru hiker out when we get to Virginia near his home. Very generous. He is an IT guy as well and we have similar gear preferences so we talked about that a while. I may have to call him when I get there.

Took my time packing up, trying to let my tent dry off some. Ended up leading shortly after 9. Muddy trails everywhere today after the rain over the weekend. Hiked on and off with Theseus and Nicole from Maryland.

Met a father with his 5 year old son attempting a thru. Best of luck to him but he has a major task ahead of him.

Got to long creek falls about 1130. Taking a good break for lunch and get some water. Some of the section hikers decided to go swimming. The screams that quickly ensued kept everyone else out. It was cold!

After a nasty protein bar and a peanut butter tortilla sandwich, headed on towards hawk shelter.

Ended up at hawk about 235. Several people already at the shelter and more were coming in all the time. About 315 decided to stay instead of going on to horse gap. About 6 people left to go there but there is no water and not that big a place to tent at.

Lots of weed being consumed- seems to be a staple of the trail. Put my tent a good ways away from the shelter.

Met some new people that started at springer this morning. Seems to be an interesting group for tonight. We shall see.

Some of the section hikers has kazoos and a thru hiker broke one out as well. Had an impromptu concert of Disney songs. It was great.

Ate dinner about 530- plain mashed potatoes. Boring, but edible. Then some oreos for dessert.

More and more people keep coming in. It's turning into a real crowd. Wide variety of people represented.

Everyone is cooking dinner and hanging their bear bags. By 7 the cables are full and one took 2 people to haul it up.

At 8 there were 38 tents and at least 55 people at the shelter. We have 3 fires going and about 4 separate groups hanging out.

Very interesting night for sure. About to head towards the tent and hopefully get some sleep. Planning 14 miles tomorrow to make up for the 2.5 miles I skipped today. Heading towards preacher rock, a great overlook with some camping nearby. The weather is supposed to turn bad someone tomorrow afternoon or night so I may be in for an interesting night on the mountain.