A short weekend on the AT

I decided to take a short section hike on the Appalachian Trail. I scanned the map for a place close to home, I have never been before , not too crowded (this ruled out max patch to I40.) I ended up on 208 in Tennessee hiking the Appalachian trail up to Little laural shelter.

Most of this beautiful hike up, up, and up. Beautiful but no showstoping views around 5 miles in.

Sleep in a shelter?

I took a chance to face my fears and sleep in the shelter last night in case it rained. What are my fears?

1. The last time I tried sleeping in a shelter mice were running l all over me, chewing holes in my pack, shredding my toilet paper. This time I did not see one mouse I had my pack hung up this also.

2. My tent is warmer but I was toasty last night.

3. I am more exposed, I may wake up with a bear licking my toes!

4. It did not apply last night because no one else was here but my biggest fear with sleeping in a shelter is when I get up to go pee in the middle of the night disturbing others last night only up 2 times not bad but if ten people were in there and each went 2 times? I did read one article about men doing kegal exercises to help not pee at night?

5. No bears and I felt surprisingly safe woke very windy outside but my three sides blocked most of it.

Met a trail maintainer, Dave he was a working machine, I was amazed at the water breaks he got dug yesterday after we spoke.

Then today while I was stopped eating a pear he came back by, headed up to where he had left off. He volunteers and is up here every other weekend

Paint Creek Corridor

After the hike I took a nice drive. I came down the paint creek corridor a beautiful spring day!

Took a nice nap in my hammock beside the river.

I took a barefoot hike then thought a wade would be nice, but dang that water was cold!

Hotsprings

On the way backpacking I stopped by Hotsprings just to see if they had tubs available on Sunday evening. They had one left and it was on the river. Of coarse I took it!

I did not feel like driving home afterwards, so before going to the hot tubs I got a room at the Laughing Heart hostel. a wonderful bed for $35.00