People Go Home

Day 163

Saturday September 2, 2017

Miles: 1807.9 - 1816.7.    Completed: 8.8

Time: 7:05am - 5:16pm

Weather: Cold, windy start then ended warm and sunny

Hotel Hampton Inn

Our luck at hitting popular destinations on a Saturday has been terrible. I think the whole world was climbing up the peak today while we were trying to get off of it. 

We worked hard to get to the top of South Kinsman. There we had the summit to ourselves. The view was amazing. 

The profiles of Mountains rolled off into the horizon like storm waves across the endless ocean. We could only enjoy it for a quick snack. The wind whipped and whirled around cooling us to the point we needed to add an extra layer of warmth.

We finished our snacks and headed towards the north peak. As we did so we passed multiple du hikers on their way up. We were dressed in layers and they were scantily clad in shorts and tank tops. Oh, did they have a surprise waiting for them.

There were so many hikers. All I wanted to do is get off the mountain and out of the woods. Hiking on a Saturday is bad enough. Combine that with Labor Day Saturday and it's more then I can handle. We spend most of our time in the woods seeing very few people then SHAZAM!!!! Instant crowd overload because it's a holiday weekend. 

Batman hiked in to meet us. He was the only day hiker I was glad to see. We hiked out not a second too soon and he wisked us away to town. We decided with the bad weather forecasted we'd finally take a much needed zero. 

The crowded mountain should have been a tell tale sign for us. The holiday weekend with bad weather made it impossible for us to lock down a last minute reservation. We had to drive over an hour from the trail to find accommodations. We finally secured a room and were soon settled in for the night. 

Happy Hiking.