Day 107 Dalton to Mark Noepel Shelter

Todays miles 13.9.  AT miles 1579.1

We had a lazy start this morning.  We took out/added what we needed and repacked our bounce boxes and dropped them at the Post Office.  The next time we see them we'll have finished the trail.  Just round the corner from the motel was a lovely cafe, Juice & Java, where we went for breakfast. No Big Deal, another thru hiker, joined us.  We had delicious egg and bacon rolls and freshly baked blueberry muffins.  We then had to do a bit of food shopping for the next three days.

It was 10:15 by the time we started walking.  It was a pleasant cooler cloudy day today with sunny spells in the afternoon.  We missed two turnings for the AT this morning adding an extra half mile.  Getting the right road out of Dalton was confusing and about a mile later when we entered the forest we got on the wrong path again.  We've started hitting the higher mountains again now after a few weeks in the lower valleys/plains which we're looking forward too.  It should be cooler higher up and hopefully less mosquitoes!

This morning was a steady nine mile up and over to the small town of Cheshire.  We stopped there for an ice cream break at a lovely little deli called Diane's Twist.
From Cheshire it was a steady five mile uphill, just a couple of steeper sections, to Mark Noepel Shelter where we arrived just before 5pm.  Milky and Springside were already at the shelter.  We're camping for the night on a wooden tent platform for the first time which required a few adaptations to secure the tent. Its nice on a wooden platform, it's cleaner, no mud straight outside the door, its like stepping out onto decking.  It's also our highest camp spot at 2843ft for a long time. 

Nigel cooked dinner at the shelter rather than in our tent for a change, being sociable we had a pleasant evening chatting with Milky and Springside.  We needed jackets on though as it was a bit cooler.  We're not complaining though, we like the cooler weather.