Saturday, April 16th

Today we woke up a little later around 9 to a chilly mountain breeze. Because we hiked an extra 3.5 miles yesterday we only had a 9 mile hike today. It was originally planned to where today would have been 12.5 miles. We set out late after not having coffee and started our ascent to a long plateau. Starting at Horsetrough Mountain we hiked about 5 miles o  flat terrain. We decided to finish our somewhat easy day by scaling Blue Mountain and staying a little past Blue Mountain shelter. After a brutal 800 foot ascent we came to find the shelter and surrounding campgrounds were all full, so we ended up setting up camp about a half mile past the shelter around 6:30. By now, we have accepted our roles for the construction of our night shelter. Every evening upon reaching camp we both quickly gather firewood, make our sleeping arrangements (tent or enos), and set up the food. I build a fire and make any necessary changes to near by logs or rocks while James cooks up some food. We noticed that this was becoming a trend as this has happened for about the third night in a row. We went to bed around 8 after some delicious Mountain House chicken & rice.