Today's miles 11. AT miles 284.9
Once packed we were back at the Smokey Mountain Diner for breakfast again this morning, cheese and bacon omelette with hash browns and biscuit/toast, no gravy - Can't get used to gravy for breakfast! We would rather have baked beans but they don't seem to do that over here.
A lazyish start, it was 10am when we hit the trail, but we knew we only had 11 miles to go today. It was a cold start but then warmed to a lovely sunny day again. We're making the most of the good weather, rain is forecast in a couple of days. We had a good view back to Hot Springs on a rocky ascent out of town.
We passed a couple of groups of trail maintenance guys today. The first group were clearing fallen trees from the trail and the second group a few miles later had just put in a small set of steps, we were the first to use them, and were also clearing fallen trees. All volunteers, the main guy (red top) was telling us he and his wife are responsible for maintaining a three and a half mile section of the trail and he'd brought along three friends to help him today. What a great job they do, the trail would be in a very eroded state if it weren't for these volunteers.
We also went past some field clearings known as Mill Ridge, once used for growing tobacco and hay. Now maintained as a wildlife habitat, a cooperative effort between the US forest service and NC wildlife resources commission.
We arrived at our camp spot for the night, Spring Mountain Shelter, about 3:15. The shelter is quite run down and there was a fair bit of rubbish left from previous occupants. We are sleeping in our tent again. Just near our tent we saw two birds, White Breasted Nuthatches, tapping at the bark of the trees looking for food/grubs.
We met another thru hiker on the trail today, Meepel, a young girl from Pennsylvania and hiked with her for a bit. We carried on ahead after a while but she is staying here at the shelter tonight, plus another thru hiker, Caribou, from Alaska. We had a good chat with them both after dinner.
My knees were really niggling me again today, they seen worse after a rest day, hopefully they'll improve tomorrow. I'll try walking with my walking pole tomorrow, I don't normally use one. We have a pole each with us, Nigel has been using his pole and says it helps him especially uphill with a heavier load after resupply. Nigel's new insoles also seem to be working a treat, his boots are much more comfortable.
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