Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Day 47 - Tuesday, May 7, 1974 - Iron Mountain Leanto to Abingdon Gap Leanto

16.6 miles - 390.7 cumulative miles


Another rough night last night.  It was very cold and I wasn't really prepared for it being that cold.  My knee was feeling pretty bad, too.  I think the cold has an effect on it.  There was a full moon last night.  Was pretty bright all night.  There were a couple of grouse drumming it up in the evening, too.  Had 7 people in the shelter.  Leo never showed up.  Got up around 6 and got moving in the freezing cold, making breakfast.  Left at 7:30.

I had a bit of a mess up with the film in my camera.  I went to rewind the film and it broke off, or had been broken off when I advanced the last frame.  So Using my raincoat as a portable dark room, I pulled the film out of the camera and into a can.  The coat wasn't exactly dark, so that roll is probably ruined.  Too bad, too, since it had all my shots of laurel Fork Gorge.  [This explains both the poor exposures of the Laurel Fork Gorge pictures and the lack of further photos from this stretch of trail]

Got to Rich Knob Shelter at 11:00 and ate lunch.  Left again at 12:00 and went on to the end of the section and stopped at a picnic area and rested some more.  Then we went on to a fire tower with great views to the west.  Saw a real cozy looking little farming valley town to the east.

Went on to Abingdon Gap Shelter and got there around 4:00.  Robin Hood was there when we arrived.  Walt had gone on another 8 miles to the next spring.  He's more or less gone, I guess.  There's a group of 7 or so kids camped down near the spring.  Five bunks in the Leanto and 5 people.  This is the last of the wire bunks for a while at least. 

No comments:

Post a Comment