Day 12

16 miles

We ended up leaving Zen’s Gooder hostel on the 8:50 am shuttle. The weather was absolute shit today. Raining almost nonstop all day with temps in the 40’s, foggy and windy. When we jumped off the shuttle back at winding stair gap we were greeted by a couple of past hikers doing trail magic. Cooking up hotdogs bratwurst and veggie dogs with all the fixings. I’ve had worse for breakfast. We head out after chatting and eating a bit. A few hours goes by and we come across more trail Magic. A guy by the name of Wings who is a LASH (long ass section hiker) is out doing trail magic in this atrocious weather. We had a couple rocks of beer, a huge box of rice crispies and all the chips you can handle. He knows what hikers like. We only stay long enough to have a beer and a few bags of chips as the weather is getting worse by the hour. We all grab a beer for the road and head out. The weather continues to be shitty. Cold and rainy and windy. We get to a small 6 person shelter around 5:30. We are the first to arrive and quickly claim spots for ourselves. It fills up quickly over the next hour as we cook our dinner and play cards. The temperature is dropping quickly so we wrap up in everything that we have and go to sleep.