stacey ewing

So sorry for the delay in posting- my webserver was down for several hours tonight. If you tried to check the site for updates and found it unavailable, that’s why. Sorry! :\

Tim called around 6:30pm tonight and was in high spirits. I asked him where he was camped out tonight and he said he was at the Blue Mountain shelter. Confused, I reminded him that he had told me he was at the Blue Mountain Shelter on Tuesday night. He apologized and said that he was obviously delirious when we talked and he had actually stayed at the Low Gap Shelter Tuesday night.

So here are the current ‘official’ stats (with corrections):

Monday: Woody Gap to Blood Mountain Shelter (approx. 8.5 miles hiked)
Tuesday: Blood Mountain to Low Gap Shelter (approx. 13 miles hiked)
Wednesday: Low Gap to Blue Mountain Shelter. (approx. 7.2 miles hiked)

I told him that I was blogging his trip and he said, “Be sure to tell everyone that there is a 60 year old guy kicking everyone’s ass all over the trail and especially on the steep climbs.” :) Apparently this guy is putting all of them to shame, including the experienced thru-hiking youngsters. haha

Anyway, Tim said he had a really good hiking day Wednesday and it was a MUCH better day than Tuesday. The various hikers he met on the trail Tuesday have sort of joined up into an informal group. As of 6pm on Wednesday night, there were 5 or 6 of those folks at the shelter already. Because they’d finally moved out of the burn-ban area on the trail, they were going to make a campfire tonight.

He seemed to think they might make it to Unicoi tomorrow (Thursday) or at least to the Tray Mountain shelter if the weather worked in their favor. I asked him if he wanted me to check the weather for him on the internet while we were talking, but he said that there was a guy in their group who has a blackberry with him and had already checked it! haha So they already knew about the strong probability for rain.

I saw later that Weather Underground is calling for 100% rain in their area so it should be an interesting day for them. If they hurry in the morning they might be able to make good time before the rain hits. He did say they were expecting two good climbs before Tray Mountain (which is approx. 7.3 miles away) so it will be interesting to hear how they make out.

So this is a picture of the Low Gap Shelter where he actually stayed TUESDAY night. :)