Yesterday (Monday), I took a zero, which means I moved zero miles down the AT. Most people do this in town, but I chose to do it at a shelter, in the woods. It was quite an enjoyable day, mostly spent around the campfire, eating. It felt good to rest and rejuvenate, and simply to enjoy being in the woods without rushing to get somewhere. The overall feeling on the trail is to push forward, to make it to the next town or get the few extra miles whenever possible, so it was nice to counteract that with a day of stagnant joy near the fire.

As I mentioned, I have plenty of food this time, and I have time to make it to the Smokies to meet my family, so why not take my time? Hawk and some of the others got ahead of me, but some old friends caught up: Six friends that I had met a few nights back. They are an impressively tightly knit group yet were very welcoming and inclusive toward me. I plan to stick with them for at least the next couple of days. It has been great so far. They were glad to share the warmth of my fire when they arrived, and I was glad for the company. We were also joined later by a few other hikers and stayed up around the fire sharing stories.

The next morning, I felt right at home.

Needless to say, there would not be a morning campfire, nor one tonight (Tuesday night). We hiked 11 miles today, all of it on the snow and some of it through the snow. It was definitely beautiful but not entirely appreciated by all the members of my new gang.

Despite the frustration and sudden change of weather, we survived so far. When we strolled into the shelter this afternoon, the majority jumped into sleeping bags to get warm. The rest of us cooked up some dinner. The hot food and tea got the others out of bed soon, but it continued to snow, and we were all in our sleeping bags by 5:30PM.

When compared to other nights, it is not all that early to be in bed, but none of us were that tired yet, so we horsed around for a while, played 20 questions and talked. As I said, it is a fun group, and I better like them because tonight, we are packed into this tiny shelter, our temporary home. Tomorrow, we plan to hike a Nero (near zero, about 5 miles) into “town,” and split some lodging to avoid more snowy weather and grab some food.

Yes, yes, all of you who told me so can now say, “I told you so!” There is snow here, accumulating snow, but you’ll notice I am not complaining. In fact, I was pretty happy about it. I was in my turtleneck, while everyone else was hiking in their coats and hats. Admittedly, I put mine on when it really started snowing, but I am fully prepared for worse than this. I built a miniature snowman and had a mostly one-sided snowball fight. The snow was not packing particularly well, and as I said, most were not as enthused about it.

As I type, I lie near sweating in my sleeping bag. It is supposed to get cold tonight. Bring it on! I’m loving every minute.

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