Day 20 Apr 21 The Experience

Day 20 Apr 21 Days miles 10.9 (I say 11!) AT mile 158.3

Camped at Yellow Creek Gap stealth
Hiking Hours  8.5 many breaks!

We have 17 miles to Fontana  Dam where Allagash AKA Maddam gets picked up by the kennel so we wanted to get as far as we could today to make Saturdays hike shorter as we have a cabin waiting for us.

We got up early in the dark packing up to get an early start and beat the heat of the sun, we were on the trail at 7! A record for us.

On the apps map it looked like an easy roller coaster hike but right off there was a hard straight up climb, ugh! The uphill climb of yesterday continued!

The most notable thing that happened today is after taking a break at Brown Fork Gap shelter, Jen was saying one experience of the trail she would pass having was to see a snake.  Shortly after that she let out a screech and jogged past saying rattle snake.  I heard and saw it and held onto Allagashs collar and rushed her by.  I've never see Jen this shook up!  Also it was a huge snake on a high side of the ridge line trail so literally about 1 foot from us as we passed!

We must be in a new ATC clubs territory as we saw down trees cut so you didn't have to be a monkey to get past them!  Rest of NC no blows were cut!

The sky got a little cloudy in the afternoon which kept the sun at bay and we had a breeze most of the day which was great. 

All in all a great day on the trail!  

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