It was a tiring day today, four lots of long uphill sections, over 5000ft in total. We left camp at 8:45 and it was immediately straight up our first hill, Walker Mountain. It was cloudy, but warm and very humid. Once we descended down the other side we started having to climb lots of fence styles, they seemed to get larger and larger, some taller than us. These were on a section of trail about a two and a half miles long that went over private land, where right of way had been given by the landowners.
The morning got more and more humid and we could feel rain and thunder in the air, about 11.30 a thunderstorm hit us. We sheltered briefly under a rhododendron bush to put on our waterproof pack covers and had a quick snack. We thought it would be just a quick rain shower but it continued so we decided to carry on walking up and over the next two hills. My trusty umbrella came to good use again, it was far too warm and humid to wear waterproofs. Nigel did put on his waterproof jacket though. Eventually the rain stopped about an hour and a half later. It remained cloudy though the rest of the day, the humidity did drop slightly, the wind picked up and it cooled off a bit.
We stopped at Lick Creek at the bottom of our final and biggest climb of the day to refill our water bottles and I cooled my feet off in the river, the water was icy cold. It was then a two and a half hour 2100ft uphill climb to Chestnut Knob shelter. The first shelter we've seen built with stone and fully enclosed with a door. There were great views from the top towards a lovely green valley and we could see the ridge line off to the right where we'll be walking tomorrow. A quick mile and a half downhill again and we reached our camp spot, Walker Gap. We met a trail maintenance guy, Fish, at the bottom and had a good chat to him. When Wall E and Milk Monster turned up a bit later, Fish had kindly given them four cans of soda for us all.
Similar to last night as soon as we were ready for bed it started raining again quite heavy, no thunder this time though. It was a bit cooler in the evening but not freezing! Once the rain stopped the wind picked up and it remained loud and windy all night. The wind though didn't blow through the trees, just over them, our tent hardly flapped at all.
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