Samwise Hikes the Appalachian Trail! - Trail Journal -
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August 30, Zealand Falls Hut - mile 1815.4

Well, I survived the cold quite comfortably last night, though I had to get out a zillion times to water a tree....I forgot that cold weather does that to me! One of the fringe benefits, though, was that I got to see an incredible night sky. I haven't seen stars like that since I camped on top of Bear Den Mountain in Virginia. I watched the moon rise and set, and the dippers spin in the sky, and Orion came up early this morning, in the midst of the Milky Way. Amazing!

The weather today was perhaps the most perfect I've ever seen, and I can only hope for a similar day when I climb Mt. Washington in a couple days. I tried to hike a little faster today, which was very hard, especially because I felt like I was running past the views, which is the whole point of hiking. But I very much wanted to get to this hut early enough to do work-for-stay. Usually you have to arrive about 3pm to get it, but fast as I went, I only made it at 4. When I arrived, I found out they already had 3 thru-hikers here, but they would check with the hut master to see if they could take a fourth. I waited around for an hour for him to return and then he decided they could take me to do some bunk sweeping in the morning. Normally, I'd probably pass on morning chores, since I hate getting such a late start, but I figured I've only got 7 miles to reach Crawford Notch tomorrow, and it's basically flat and downhill walking. So I should have plenty of time.

To my surprise, Featherweight and Lightfoot are also here as work-for-stays, so we are having a great time getting caught up again. We have been leap-frogging each other on the trail since we started in April. We used to also see Mr. Moo and Quijote, too, but they seem determined not to ever catch up to us again! Who knows - maybe in Maine, we'll see them again.