Chestnut Knob Shelter
15.5 miles hiked between 7:45am and 4:15pm on 4/10/2004
Earlier in the day, I stopped for lunch near Knot Maul Branch Shelter, and while listening to the radio, I heard a really funny guy on the radio. His name is Joe Queenan and he was going on about material from his book, Balsamic Dreams : A Short But Self-Important History of the Baby Boomer Generation. The segment can be found here at about the 8 1/2 minute mark. Roughly.
This shelter is actually a little house, a former fire warden's cabin w/a picnic table (inside) and bunks. I'm actually staying in here as there is an 80% chance of rain tonight and they are calling for rain all day tomorrow, and I hate to pack up *while* it is raining. I delay and delay and it takes even longer than I already take to get it together in the morning. To be fair though, I did do really well this morning.
The view of Burke's Garden, God's Thumbprint is spectacular. I took a snap (below), but I can't possibly do this justice without a panoramic lens. What an incredibly beautiful place.
The walk today was tough, lots of up and down and one very looooong up (4.5 miles) climb up to Chestnut Ridge. The 16 miles here were actually easier than I expected. The profile for the climb up Chestnut is really alarming. Maybe I shouldn't look at those things. ;)
Deaf Don (sectioner), Shadowman and Redbeard are also here.
Here's Chestnut Knob Shelter. It's a terrific place. Having it enclosed makes it much warmer than a shelter or my tarp, so that was nice. Also, there are bats in the eaves -- we all heard them squeaking and flapping. I noticed no mice at all. Perhaps the bats had something to do with that, or maybe I slept better than I thought.
I'm not sure what it is, but the privy here gives me the giggles. I love the open privies, don't get me wrong, but it looks like a little barnwood I-don't-know-what that's about to fall down the mountain (except it isn't. It's a perfectly reasonable privy, in reality). OK. I have no idea why I find it funny.
Here's a shot of Burke's Garden that in no way does it justice
Posted by nicole at January 30, 2004 09:54 PM