Hiker Cuisine

I’m at the Stan Murray shelter tonight (April 24) at mile marker 384.4. I did 13.7 miles today, which puts my trailing seven-day mileage up a little over 98 miles. I definitely have a pretty good mileage streak going, but that will end tomorrow, because I'm only going to do 11. I might be able to push that seven-day number over 100 at some point. For now, though, I'm pretty happy with the mileage I've been getting.

When I woke up at Clyde Smith shelter, it was pretty chilly. The skies were gray, and I was very toasty in my sleeping bag. At the time, I was expecting to only do about eight and a half miles today, so I wasn't in any hurry to get going. But then I looked at the weather forecast and saw that rain was on the way — again —  so I needed to get hustling. I packed up and had everything ready to go by eight, and right as I started to hike, it started raining. So I pulled over, put on my jacket, and put my rain cover on my pack. It continued raining for about the next eight miles or so.

I reached Hughes Gap roughly four miles into the day. It stands at about 4,000 feet, and it marks the start of the ascent up Roan Mountain. Over the course of the next four miles or so, the elevation gain is about 2,200 feet. So that was a long climb. At the top of Roan Mountain, you get to the highest shelter on the Appalachian Trail, the Roan High Knob Shelter. It's a little bit off the trail, just about .1 miles. I’d covered 8.5 miles so far, it was freezing cold, and I wanted to get something to eat, so I decided to go check it out.

I’d originally been thinking that I’d spend the night there, but it was only 1 o'clock, and when I got to the shelter, it wasn’t the most inviting structure. It’s a little cabin, but it’s windowless and a bit creepy, actually. So, I decided just to stay long enough for a quick snack.

While I was there, I met a southbound section hiker from Texas named Turtle, and we chatted for a little bit. But I was starting to get pretty cold, so I needed to get moving again and head down the trail. I’d heard that someone at Carver Gap, which is about two miles off the summit of Roan, was going to be doing some Trail Magic (Again, Aaron, don't get excited.), but by the time I got down to Carver Gap, the person had left. So two out of the past three days, I've been told to hustle to get down to a gap, only to find that the Trail Magic had already left. Maybe next time.

The nice thing was that at Carver's Gap, the weather finally cleared up! The clouds went away, and the blue skies came in. It was absolutely gorgeous, and it was also great timing, because I was coming to a series of balds. I really love hiking over balds, and the weather was perfect, and the scenery was gorgeous. I spent some time up there, just hanging out and enjoying the sun for a little bit since I didn't have much further to go to get to the campsite, and I had plenty of time.

When I got down to the Stan Murray shelter, I was the first person here, so I got my pick of the tent spots and got myself some water and set everything up. I was starting to think this might be the first time I’d be spending the night by myself at a shelter, but that turned out to not be the case.

After a while, a retired couple who call themselves Ma and Pa showed up. Ma is from Australia, and she dehydrates all her own food and knits all her own clothes. She's very nice. And then another couple arrived, named Squid and Styles. They'd spent the day foraging and had a bunch of wild leeks and some dandelion greens and things like that.

So here I am, eating instant mashed potatoes with tuna and hot sauce mixed in, and they’re making a salad. I should probably learn how to forage some wild greens. That seems like a great idea. While we were eating, two women who were at the same shelter I stayed at last night showed up, Chip Goblin and Lorax. So, we've got a little bit of a full campsite tonight. Tomorrow's hike is going to be fairly short at 11 miles, and then I get to stay the night at the Mountain Harbor hostel.