I had all the motivation in the world to have a good hike today. I had a zero approaching in Franklin, North Carolina, I had just had my favorite day so far on the trail, and I was ready to rock and roll today! The storms had blown through and done their thing. The fires had taken care of most of the ground cover so when it rained as hard as it did the storms managed to splatter mud halfway up the side of my tent. It was so nice to have a dry relatively clean tent for all of a day and a half.  
It was a gorgeous day. I knew I had a long one ahead of me as I wanted to hike to Rock Gap Shelter 12 miles away. The terrain did not look too awful bad save for one particularly daunting climb. I set out from camp at a good pace and the trail led past some breath-taking vistas.  I hiked through the morning and came upon a group of my friends taking a rest just before the steepest part of Albert Mountain. I stopped, got a bite to eat, and took a rest with the other hikers. I enjoy the solitude of hiking alone as it gives me time to enjoy my own thoughts and the beautiful surroundings. It’s also nice to have a balance of social interaction on the trail. From where we were the climb up the rest of Albert Mountain only ascended around 400 vertical feet but believe me when I tell you this was the most difficult climb I have faced so far. I had my eighties mix of the Rocky IV soundtrack and St. Elmo’s Fire but at times I was still crawling hand over foot up parts of this mountain. It was brutal but luckily it was brief and it finished with a spectacular reward in the view from the top and a super cool fire tower. I am scared to death of heights so I limited myself to only climbing up a few flights of stairs on the tower. Besides it was windy as hell and I was getting chilly.  

The rest of the afternoon was pretty uneventful. As I mentioned before I was somewhat stuck in a hiking bubble. By that I mean I saw the same crowd of people each night I stopped at the shelters. This was a rather large group of folks by trail standards. As I made my way down the blue blazed trail to Rock Gap Shelter it became apparent that I needed to break away. The shelter was completely full as were all of the tent spaces. It was a good thing I had such a big dinner the night before because it gave me the energy to pick up my pack and keep on walking. I walked about a mile or so past the shelter and up another mountain and I was rewarded with the most beautiful stealth camping spot. 

 It was incredibly quiet as I was the only one there. It also knocked a mile off of my already short hike for the next day. I was about to hike even further but my knees told me that I had gone far enough that day. I set up camp and then made my dinner. Before turning in for the night I checked the weather report. The temperature was already dropping but it was supposed to be near freezing that night. I gathered some leaves and piled them around the base of my tent to keep the breezes out. I sat and watched the sunset then I slept the deep sleep of man who’d earned it that day.