Appalachian Trail (day 2) - Long Creek Falls to Blood Mountain Shelter / mile 29

Today, it was raining, heavily. Despite that I still did good progress, the price I paid was that everything other than my spare clothes and sleeping bag (which I keep in separate dry sacks) got wet. In fact even the hood of my sleeping bag got wet as I knocked the water I was boiling for dinner with it. Bugger.

Few people that I met on the trail today (and there wasn't many) were actually evacuating from it because of the rain. Interesting perk of Appalachian Trail (at least so far) is that you are never far away from civilisation, so while crossing a forrest road every few miles you have a chance to catch a car which will take you back to human lands.

After eight hours of rain my hands turned into marshmallows, my t shirt and underwear were completely drenched and so I decided to stay the night at the Blood Mountain Shelter, which was a two roomed, roofed building with two wooden window frames in each room, there was no door or windows so the wind (and rain) had a free reign inside. I positioned my sleeping bag away from the wind, in the dry part of the second room. There was no one else staying here tonight so I hanged all my belongings to dry from the wooden roof beams.

I made sure my food is also hanging high to protect it from mice, not so much bears which I was hoping not to encounter at night. This was a bear canister area (where you place your food inside a plastic container bears cannot open or destroy) which I didn't have. So my only defence was posturing and loud noises in case I have a visitor at night, but most likely I would have to say goodbye to my provisions if that happened.

Just as I thought the day was over. A guy with a massive German shepherd arrived in the shelter. Also completely drenched, the dog confused and wet. He didn't have a sleeping bag or mattress, all his spare clothes were wet. I think his plan was to sleep on the hammock but that went out of the window so he put on the dryest clothes he had and wrapped himself in a tarpaulin (which he probably was planning to use as a roof while sleeping in the hammock). I offered him my. spare, dry t-shirt and sone food but he refused both.

It was all dramatic and a bit scary to be honest. Hun, the German shepherd was eyeing me all the time and barking at any suspicious noise. Neil his owner was trembling underneath the tarpaulin, trying to get the dog closer to warm himself up. The issue was that he had no insulation from the concrete floor and biggest heat source he had was his own CO2 trapped underneath the tarpaulin.

If I was him I would go to the town three miles down the road which had a hostel and spend the night there, I even mentioned it to him but he was not interested, claiming that he was exhausted.

The only good thing I could gather from this situation was that there would be no bear brave enough to mess with the Hun as he was the size of one and a half of a regular European German shepherd. For once I was grateful Americans love to upsize everything they put their hands on.