Day 4, Shelton Gravesite to near Log Cabin Road

Although last night was very chilly, the temperature didn't drop below freezing as I thought it might. When I woke up this morning, there was no frost on my tent.

I was up shortly before the sun rose, and when I looked at the sky, I was pleased to see it was clear. The two days of nearly continuous rainfall appeared to be over.

Most importantly, the sunshine meant we could stop and dry our wet gear today. I knew that Jerry Cabin Shelter was less than four miles away and would be a good spot for that. The area around the shelter had plenty of room for us to spread everything out in the sun.

Taking down my tent and packing shouldn’t have taken as long as it did, but I'm always slower when all my gear is wet. The cold temperature didn't help, and I needed about 35 minutes more than usual to get ready. Though Polecat and I were on the trail by 7:40 a.m., we hoped to start earlier than that.

I removed my insulated jacket just before we left because the temperature was already rising.

We were only on the trail 40 minutes before I stopped again to remove my mid-layer. Mittens were also no longer needed.

It sure was nice to see and feel the sun. This was the first time I saw a bright blue sky since I left Burnsville on Thursday.

The trail was still wet, though it was only soggy where it went through a dense stand of rhododendrons. That was near a bad weather side trail that went around a rocky section at Big Butt. We had no reason to follow the bad weather trail today.

After Big Butt, parts of the trail followed an old farm road that crossed Coldspring Mountain. It used to continue farther on roads, but the Carolina Mountain Club (CMC) rerouted the trail with a new section that split from the rutty old road.

The trail then opened to a large meadow that stretched for more than a half-mile. Because I had hiked here four or five times in the last 20 years, I knew this section would be cruisy and we would soon get to Jerry Cabin Shelter.

As I expected, there was lots of sunshine at the shelter when we arrived at 10:15 a.m. No one was there, so Polecat and I took over the whole place. We hung nearly everything we had in our packs because it was all wet. We ate snacks and filtered water from a nearby spring while we waited for the gear to dry.

The shelter was built on the site of an old cabin. It was a home for a farmer who brought livestock up to Coldspring Mountain during the summer. When an AT shelter was built at the site of the cabin in the early 1970s, stones from the cabin's fireplace and foundation were re-used.

For many years, the shelter had a reputation for being the dirtiest on the AT. Then a man named Sam Waddle took responsibility for maintaining it, as well as a section of the trail. For nearly 26 years until he died in 2005, Waddle dedicated countless hours caring for the shelter. I remember the first time I stopped here on a day hike, there was an old, non-working phone mounted inside the shelter. This was an example of charming extra touches Waddle put in the shelter and showed his sense of humor.

A couple of hikers passed by while we waited for our gear to dry. One stopped to chat and told us his trail name was The Dawn. He tried to explain how he got that name, but I didn't understand.

The Dawn said he was section hiking after giving up on a thru-hike following a couple of bad experiences with broken bones in the Smokies. We agreed it was good to still be hiking.

Wildflowers began to appear along the ridge we were walking. The sunshine probably had a lot to do with that. I couldn't miss the first flowers I saw because they were nearly hanging over the trail. They were hobblebush, a variety of the viburnum bush.

The bushes grow 3-10 feet tall and spread 4-12 feet wide. Their milky-white flowers will become red berries in the fall that attract birds, squirrels, and chipmunks.

After walking 45 minutes since leaving the shelter, we came to a trail junction. This was where the other bad weather trail connected to the white-blazed trail.

I used the blue-blazed trail on my thru-hike because the wind was blowing fiercely. When I arrived at Jerry Cabin Shelter, I heard stories from other hikers about how dangerous the white-blazed was to follow. The weather caused one hiker to stop in the middle of the trail in fear and sob.

The blue-blazed trail was the official AT route following its construction along the Tennessee-North Carolina border. That changed when the trail was rerouted in 2003 by the Carolina Mountain Club to take advantage of spectacular views from the top of Big Firescald Knob's narrow ridge.

With pleasant sunshine and a light breeze, we had no problem to follow the white-blazed route today. This was one of my favorite sections of the AT, and I was delighted to be here in perfect weather. I'm sure I would have followed the bad weather trail if I had been here yesterday or the day before.

At times, there were 360-degree views from the exposed trail. When I looked south, I knew that somewhere in the farthest range of mountains stood Mt. Mitchell, Craggy Dome, and other mountains.

The part of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail included in the Appalachian High Route crosses or goes near those mountains, many are above 6,000 feet in elevation.

If all goes as planned, Polecat and I will be walking along those mountains in roughly two weeks.

The route over Big Firescald Knob climbed to nearly 4,500 feet, which wasn't the highest point on today's section but offered the best views. Getting to the highest part of the ridge required following a footpath laid out in large boulders. These were carefully placed by CMC crews, requiring significant engineering to make sure each one was firmly embedded on the ridge.

It took trail crews seven years to complete the 1.5-mile rerouted section, and when you climb up here, you can see why.

A bronze marker on a large boulder honored the work of Howard McDonald, who volunteered with the CMC for 30 years. He died in 2015 at the age of 89. McDonald didn't just work on the AT. He was involved in several CMC trail projects. The club maintains nearly 100 miles of the AT and about 130 miles of the MST, along with many other trails.

McDonald started his volunteer work with the CMC in 1992, a year after his wife died of ovarian cancer. He retired from trail building and maintenance just a few months before his death. At that time, he had contributed more than 9,000 volunteer hours to the CMC and had served as the club's president.

Looking to the west from an open spot, I could see the trail's next high point, Camp Creek Bald, though the trail no longer goes over the summit. It was rerouted after some communication towers were erected on top of the mountain.

The oldest tower was built in 1929 as a fire lookout. Earl Shaffer, the first person to thru-hike the AT, wrote in his trail journal that he slept in that tower.

"Continued on to route 70 at Gap," he wrote. "Caught ride to town to get film, took 3 hrs. Went on to Camp Creek Bald Tower and stayed there overnight with Towerman."

I wanted to stay as long as possible on Big Firescald Knob. The weather and the views were too beautiful to leave. It was also fun to see where I would be hiking after I circled around to follow the MST east and back to Burnsville.

I didn't feel like I could just stop and sit for a while, however. Our two-hour break to dry our gear had used up all of the time I thought I should give if we were going to make it to Hot Springs tomorrow.

After the descent from the narrow ridge and past where the blue-blazed trail reconnected with the white-blazed trail, I walked through large patches of rhododendrons. There were small breaks in these, and more wildflowers sometimes appeared. This time, they were springbeauty, which are plentiful in the Appalachian Mountains this time of year. Trout lily were nearby but hadn't bloomed yet.

The springbeauty I saw today were in small clumps. On other hikes, springbeauty was so widespread, the mountain slope looked like it was covered in snow.

While ascending the slope toward Camp Creek Bald, I passed a hiker who stopped to ask a question.

Hiker: “Did you cross a gap a ways back?”

Me: “You’ll have to be more specific. There are gaps all along this trail.”

Hiker: “One with parking spaces for cars.”

I still wasn't sure what gap he was referring to but wondered if it was Sam's Gap. He didn't seem to have any idea what he was looking for.

I met another hiker shortly after that. He said his trail name was Firewalker, and this was his second thru-hike. He told me he lost a lot of weight on the first hike, then gained most of it back.

I could relate to that.

When the trail stopped climbing toward Camp Creek Bald, it made a wide bend and began a long descent. We had only gone nine miles by this time, and there wasn't much daylight left in the day. It was becoming clear we would not make up as much time today as we did yesterday, and there was no way for us to reach our goal for today.

When I got to Flint Mountain Shelter, I talked to Polecat about our options. We agreed to look for another gravesite, which was said to be suitable for camping. Cell service was available from the shelter, so I called Kim to change the time we expected to be in Hot Springs tomorrow.

My mind was so much on the schedule and hoping we could make it to Hot Springs before the end of tomorrow, I absent-mindedly left the shelter without my trekking poles. Fortunately, I didn't get far before realizing my mistake.

A luna moth kept me amused for a couple hundred yards or more down the trail. It seemed as if it wanted to be my hiking buddy.

Farther down, I met more thru-hikers. One said his trail name was Heisenberg, the pseudonym chosen by the Walter White character in the Breaking Bad TV series.

Heisenberg was instantly likable and we talked for several minutes. He was excited to tell me that trail magic was just ahead at Log Cabin Road. "The Cookie Lady" lived there, he said. I liked the sound of that but was also disappointed. Polecat and I would miss the trail magic because we intended to stop before reaching the road.