The four of us slept all night tucked up close together in the shelter. And when I say "close together", I mean close together.
It sure was nice to have a night without rain! Occasionally acorns would fall from above and slam into the metal roof of the shelter and startle us, but we were thankful to have no visits from bears or other creatures. We slept until 7 AM and then slowly crawled from our packs and started our day.
We packed up quickly, made time for coffee and breakfast, and then it was time to hit the trail.
We started the day with a big climb with lots of signs of bear along the way. At the first high point we were able to get cell service and checked in with our families. The leaves were getting prettier every day, and it smelled so delicious in the forest.
We only had to hike about 11 miles to get to our destination, but we were faced with long, long climbs all day. Why does it always feel like the ups take forever and the downs go by in a flash?! The views from the mountain tops left us guessing at what was below. That thick, misty fog was still hanging around up on top Hightop Mountain!
Before too long, we were making the big descent down into Elkton. It's always a bit of shock to see how nice it is down in the valleys when the weather up at elevation is so different!
We came out to Skyline Drive at Swift Run Gap. This is where our shuttle driver, Wayne, was going to meet us! It was day four, and we were ready for showers, clean clothes, and a resupply of our food. We hung out for a few minutes to wait for him, thoroughly enjoying the sunshine.
Wayne picked us up and soon stopped at a little market where we bought diet pop and cheeseburgers. Yum! We had made a reservation at Country View Lodging just that morning. The owner was sooo nice and accommodating. Honestly, everyone we had met this trip had been amazing. We threw clothes in the washer, showered, and hung tents to dry out. Thank you to Misty, Chelsea and Kara for doing the laundry and cleaning and drying the tents while I sat half naked waiting for clean clothes!
Wayne was off on another mission later in the day, but he offered to send one of his sidekicks to shuttle us to town. Nelson arrived to take us to the grocery store for our resupply, and to El Paso for margaritas and so much Mexican food! Nelson was quite the character, which has been the case for all of our shuttle drivers to date!
Back at the motel, we sorted our food, filled our water bottles, packed up as much as we could, and got everything ready for an early departure. Wayne would be arriving at 7:30 to get us back to the trail. We were all excited to sleep in real beds, if only for the night.
Total Daily Mileage:11.60
Total Calories Burned: 2,501
The rice krispys are getting bigger😉
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