Day 30

Hot Springs Campground to Spring Mountain Shelter – 10.1 miles
284.9 / 1900.4

Today was relatively easy and I arrived to the shelter around 12:45. I’ve been thinking about kicking my miles up a bit, and the 3 nights in amazing Hot Springs certainly didn’t help. I slept like a baby last night, 10 hours waking up a couple times. We were about 10 feet from a large rushing river and the sound of that just put me out! We found a stray dog in town and a couple in our group decided to take him hiking, he’s doing great!

Today started with a 1000 ft climb with a view of Hot Springs down at 1300 ft. I already miss it. After another 4 miles I came to another big incline with a fire on the top at around 3500 ft. It was cold enough (45) to wear my long sleeves but I was sweating on the way up and freezing on the top. It’s still been cold out recently, dropping into the low 30s at night. Were all still waiting for spring to hit at higher elevations, as the flowers are blooming around 2000 feet currently.

I passed by a dirt road today and saw the guy from yesterday who is hiking with horses and saying he is on Nat Geos new tv show ‘primitive America’ we will see if that’s true. The horses were running wild which was cool, and then I came to the beautiful tall Oak Tree in the middle of the road with a double blaze on it signifying the return to the woods on the Appalachian trail. The trail from time to time goes on roads, under highways, through towns, it’s actually pretty cool.

I’m at the shelter with 25-30 other hikers, all still ‘high’ from hot springs. Had a great fire, met a lot of new people, And we are going to try to push for 20 miles tomorrow. Wish me luck!

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