2010 Annual Winter Hike, Day 2, December 28

Our first night on the trail was a cold one, but we survived and had fun listening to 'Techno Mouse'. It's amazing what the sun can do to the down spirits of young people on a hiking trip. This isn't the first hiking trip that I've been on where after a rough first day, there are murmurings about going home from the young participants. One time, I told the boys that I didn't have the keys to the car with me, that when they picked us up they would bring the keys. Totally bogus, but they didn't know and had a great hike.

We must have been really tired because we slept in and didn't get out onto the trail until probably 9:30 or 10 o'clock. That's a late start on a winter hike. We had a tough 7.5 miles ahead of us, including a climb to the top of Wayah Bald. It was an absolutely gorgeous day with a lot of good views. We continued to break trail in the snow and some pretty big drifts on the ridges over the trail.

Hiking past Siler Bald

Because we were behind and had such a rough finish to our first day, I decided that we would take the road up to Wayah Bald. It was a longer route, but a truck had been up the road and had packed the snow down, which made for a better climb. We found the truck that had helped pack the snow about 1/4 of a mile from the top. It had gotten stuck in a particularly deep snow drift and I'm not sure what happened to the driver. It was difficult to tell where he/she had gone, but they weren't frozen in the cab.

What a relief it was for all of us to get to the top of Wayah! There were bathrooms with no toilet paper and trash cans. It's always nice to deposit your trash that you've been carrying. There's a fire tower at the top of Wayah that we all climbed up into and had a good rest and snack. The views were spectacular and I think all of the boys appreciated the accomplishment.

Looking out at Wayah

Leaving Wayah Fire Tower

We left Wayah and started our trek to Wayah Shelter. It is a relatively new shelter and wasn't on my map, so I wasn't exactly sure how far we had to go. Thank goodness it was only about a mile down the trail to the shelter. We still had 2-3 hours of daylight left, so we had plenty of time to gather firewood (not easy in snow), get water and get a good fire going. Without a small fire when it's cold, all you can think about is crawling into your sleeping bag! When you do that at 7-8 p.m., it makes it very difficult to sleep through the whole night and you spend a lot of time just laying there. Our small fire extended the night to almost 10 o'clock. What a great way to end the day!

Wayah Shelter