Tuesday, April 12th

We woke up a little late, like around 10, and it took us awhile to get everything packed up as we were very slow. A little rain got through the tent and the inside was a little wet. We ended up leaving at about 11:45 after we had a little breakfast. We realized that our decision the night before to hike downhill 0.5 miles to camp right next to the water wasn't the best decision. We had to hike back up the hill this morning and the steep slopes at Hawk Mountain wore us out. We snacked at the top of Hawk Mountain and continued past Horse Gap and up to Sassafras Mountain where we ate lunch. After a nice break we went down, through Cooper Gap and then started up Justice Mountain. The plan for today was to camp at Blackwell Creek which is right before Gooch Mountain. After passing Justice Creek, where we refilled our water bottles due to other campers claiming it was the last clean water until Gooch, we ended up at Blackwell Creek to end about a 7.5 mile hike today. We decided to not set up the tent since it took so long this morning packing it. So, we set up our enos, we made dinner, and then went to bed while looking at the stars in the sky.