Day 10

Another great day. I started with watching a nice sunrise thru the trees then the majority of my day was on an easy, gradual trail. Then just a mile or two before reaching Blue Mountain Shelter, the trail inclined massively and with lots of rocks. Generic and I had a young guy join us. He’s usually very fast but keeps pushing too hard until he’s overdone it. Hiking with us slowed him down, which is what he wanted us to help him do. Someone told him he passed them like a rocket. He thought that would be a good trail name but there’s too many rockets already. I suggested Bottle Rocket since he pushes too hard until he explodes. He loved it and said he would own it. Yay! I helped name a hiker! Okay, so we made it to Blue Mountain shelter. This is a great shelter. Lots of tent space with easy access to the privy and Bear cables. The water source here is bad though. Barely trickles and is quite a way southbound downhill. Still a nice spot. Someone started a fire so I enjoyed that for a while. Now ready for sleep. Looking forward to another nice sunrise. Oh, it will be a short day tomorrow. Going down 2.4 miles so Unicoi Gap and get picked up to go to Around the Bend hostel. Looking forward to a shower. I’m absolutely filthy and getting quite smelly.