All of the climbs are starting to feel the same, which is good… I think. The legs are willing and able to do the work, though now that I’m above 5,000 ft all day the lungs aren’t quite keeping up. It should get better though.
Spent the day hiking with Festus and Bubbles. We made it to the shelter and were even some of the first ten hikers to arrive. This guaranteed us spots in the shelter, which was a good thing based on the rain forecast to fall overnight. Some more section hikers arrived after dinner looking for shelter spaces as well. The shelter holds 12 people but by the time we went to bed we had managed to squeeze 16 pads across the floor. Guthooks comments say that the roof leaks, we’ll see who drew the short straw and put their pads in the future wet spot.
Tomorrow should be a relatively short day in the rain and then the following day we’re headed into Gatlinburg.
Day 21 Mileage: 12.1 mi [Mollies Ridge Shelter -> Derrick Knob Shelter]
Total Mileage: 197.9 mi