The wind is howling and the hoar frost is decorating all the trees and brush like I have never seen. The mountain Ash berries are particularly photogenic. I keep stopping to stare but I have to get to Thomas knob shelter. When I do get there there is a humongous fire and about 25 people. Most of them there because they didn't believe it could possibly be as cold as it is. 28 miles from here to Damascus and this is where that fellow that blew into the hostel hiked from. Bound and determined not to spend another night in the cold. There were three or four tents set up and only about 8 of us in the shelter. A group of 10 women came in from Ohio for this hike. Half were in tents and half were on the second floor of the shelter. I was on the bottom with a couple of fellows from NC. They were all set up figuring how to sleep with boots and water inside their 40det bags.. The first thing I did, which hadn't occurred to any one was to string up the unofficial blue tarp that was there across the shelter opening with one corner held by a sliding rock that let people get in and out. No Hellas I froze my fingers, no comments… These people don't get what cold is. I had brought a dozen chemical hand Warner's and sprinkled them librly in my sleeping bag got my long johns on, warm socks hat and gloves and I figured I was going to be ok in my 12deg bag. The feeder tube to my water bladder in my pack had frozen solid 4 miles back. Before I went to bed I filled the pot for my jet boil and put the rest under my hear for a pillow. Maybe the whole thing won't freeze solid. There was a trickle of a spring down the hill but my purification drops had frozen long ago. I did have some iodine pills if I really wanted to get more water. I'm thinking in 10 miles tomorrow I can lower my elevation by 2000 ft and this will all just be a cold memory. I put my wet socks in my bag and the jet boil canister in my bag. The propane/butane mixture works less and less the higher you get and the colder it gets. Also I think it has something to do with the partial pressures of each but the propane (or maybe it's the butane) will selectively burn off and you really begin to loose efficiencies. At supper time the thing barely sputtered and I thought I was going to eat my teriyaki Knorr side laced with a package of tuna packed in olive oil cold. Reminiscent of eating frozen sardines on a fateful trip to the White Mountains about 40 plus years ago. So the canister slept with me, my boots, damp as they were did not. At midnight I tossed a hand warmer in each one and wrapped them in my insulated jacket. Hopefully it will at least ward off having to put on blister inducing frozen boots in the morning It was cold that night wicked cold.
-81.5159°, 36.6457°
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