Appalachian Trail SOBO Day 98 – It’s too cold, zero day!
1st November 2024
Mountain Harbour Hostel
Daily miles: 0
Total miles: 1792
We are in a barn. There are a lot of holes. And while it’s warmer than being outside, it’s still cold.
I was hot when I went to bed, stripping off my socks and trousers but around 3am I woke up because I was so cold. I got my sleeping bag out and put that over me, then I got my hat and trousers and socks on. After that I slept pretty well and I was kind of awake when Hendrix told me it was nearly 8am and breakfast was about to be served.
Went over to the main house for breakfast. They have a couple of rooms there but they are expensive, although they probably have sealed walls and doors. Going outside wasn’t as cold as I had anticipated, but the wind hurt my eyes.
The breakfast is cited as the best on trail and it was pretty good. Lots of variety but a little too American for my tastes. Biscuits and gravy and sweet (deep fried) French toast. The tomato pie was nice though and the eggs and potatoes - I would have been happy with just them.
Voted the best breakfast on trail by Appalachian Trail hikers
After breakfast Guru took us down the road to resupply. We only need food for two days to Erwin so I just got a few chocolate bars and some candy as I had leftover food from the last resupply. I also got a couple of cans of soda for today.
I also picked up a pair of girls (12 year old) leggings because I got swept up in other people buying them. They are really thin and probably offer no protection and I will probably dump them in Erwin but they were $3.50
Trail magic from Guru
We were out for about an hour or so and when I got back I decided to go and lie on my bunk and get warm and I just wanted to completely switch off so I watched 3 episodes of the new series of Taskmaster and I was cosy in my sleeping bag trying to warm my feet up.
I went downstairs a few times and people were sat around playing board games and chatting and I dipped in and out, alternating between being sociable and lying down and relaxing.
Sidequest trying to seal up all the gaps in the door
Do not feed the dog, he’s on a diet
Keeping warm
Trying to keep the cold out with some CSI vibes
Afternoon napping / trying to keep warm
At 4pm they opened the kitchen. They opened it just for us so we could get food. Actually, they have been so accommodating here. Yesterday we were being indecisive about whether we were going to stay another night and she just booked us all a bed for another night and if we hiked out to let her know, if we didn’t hike out we didn’t need to do anything. And she was very keen to make sure we all had a place to sleep out of the cold.
I ordered a Chicken Teriyaki burger and Parmesan Garlic fries and it was good although I think I could have ordered better. I couldn’t eat all the fries and gave them away. Food will never get wasted when there are hikers around.
Dinner time
Catan was being played almost continuously today and I sat for a while on the sofa with the cat on my lap. She has done well today, always had a lap to sit on. We think her name is Ode Mae (named after the Whoopi Goldberg character in Ghost).
Better than a hot water bottle
Neptune and Forest arrived after having spent the night in a shelter and hiked all day to get here. There weren’t that chatty and they seemed a bit not-with-it from being so cold all day. They said it was pretty brutal.
Some people wanted to watch a movie and there was a TV in the outside area and people got all huddled up in their sleeping bags and I just wasn’t able to concentrate on a movie, plus I wasn’t cosy or warm enough out there so I lay on my bed again and now I’m writing this. It’s 7:40pm and my eyes are heavy so it might just be an early night for me.
This was a zero done right.
The mountain forecast for Roan High Knob today (which is where we are heading) had a temperature of -9ºC / 16ºF and a feels like temperature of -20ºC / -4ºF. We definitely made the right decision to avoid that today!
Feeling good after a day off
Where there are hikers there is mess
