Back At It: Day 13

Car doors slammed behind us as we stepped out of Miss Janet’s Van at Winding Stair Gap. It was a beautiful sunny day that could not have been better for hiking. Bursts of excitement coursed through my body. I cannot believe this is happening. I thought to my self. The past three days had been spent rushing around the house finding all of my gear, saying goodbye to my family, and waking up at 3:00 AM to drive down to Asheville to meet Kyle and Kory. But it was all worth it because here we were with nothing standing in our way except the mountains we had to climb. Right off the bat we were met with climbs that took the wind out of our lungs. Since we had gotten a later start to the day, we were doing a mere 11 miles to Wyah Bald Shelter. Within the first 3 miles we hit Siler Bald which is a big open field that allowed us to see for miles. We stood on top of the exposed grassy field shivering as the wind whipped around us. “Time to go?” Danny asked. “Yes!” and on we trekked. As we began our ascent to Wyah Bald. We stopped for lunch at a comfortable sunny patch of grass and ate our food. All of a sudden something hard, round, and small hit my shoulder. The skies opened up and poured buckets of hail on us. It had gone from sunny and 60 to a miserable freezing day. We packed up as fast as physically possible and continued our climb. I had lost all feeling in my hands and the only thoughts I was having were that if I hiked faster I would be warmer. The weather danced between rain and hail for the rest of the day. When we made it to Wyah Bald, our fantastic view of the mountains was a wall of white clouds. At least we got the first view. We pushed on to the shelter just in time for snow to start falling around us. We set our tents up inside the shelter and layered every piece of clothing we had and set in for a cold night.