Last night the four of us walked back to the top of Max Patch to watch the sunset, which was quite spectacular with sheets of rain coming down in the distant horizon and broken storm clouds with rays of sunshine squeezing through to create quite a show. I will post one pic below and then try to get several more posted tomorrow. After we returned to our tents we had heavy wind and rain throughout the night. I got, maybe, 2 hours of sleep and woke up feeling pretty tired. Our plan for today was to hike 16 miles to our shelter site which would have put us within 3 miles of the town of Hot Springs, NC where we have reservations for Saturday and Sunday night. The first 3 hours of our hike this morning were easy and in very cool and pleasant weather. Around 10:30 am it started to rain and continued into the afternoon. We had to eat lunch in a pretty steady rain which resulted in most of our good getting wet. After lunch we continued on with intermittent rain and thunder and increased humidity. When we reached our shelter we collectively agreed that we would hike another 3 miles to a hostel on the edge of town where we could camp tonight, get a shower and wash our clothes tomorrow morning, all for $20 each. As I type this we are waiting to meet some other trail friends and walk into town for dinner. We booked our Inn for tomorrow night and Sunday night a couple of weeks ago, not realizing that we would actually arrive one day early. So, while not optimal, we have 2 days here in Hot Springs. On the positive side, our bodies can probably use 2 solid days of rest.

Snapshot downloaded an app which is really cool. The app syncs to his watch (gps) and creates a map of the terrain that we cover on any given day. Also, when he takes a picture or video the app will place it at the location on the trail where it was taken. The video below is from our hike today which totaled 19 miles. Wishing everyone a good weekend!

(Sunset From The Top Of Max Patch, Snapshot’s Video Of Our Hike Today)