3.6.13

Zero day at Tri-Corner Knob Shelter

Chapin woke up this morning at 5:30 and started to break camp.  At 7:00 I woke up and started to pack up.  It was so cold that our boots had frozen and it took us about 20 minutes to force our feet into them, which is not comfortable.  At 9:00 we were both ready to venture out.  It had snowed about 2 feet overnight.  We hiked about 0.3 miles through hip deep snow drifts before we decided that going 7 miles in this snow would be unsafe today.  We turned around and went back to the shelter.  We again set up camp and again tried to get warm and dry.  It was nearly impossible.  I boiled water on my camp stove, poured the boiling water into my Nalgene bottle and took it with me into the sleeping bag inside my tent in the shelter.  Still I shivered.  I didn't get out of my sleeping bag for 13 hours during the day.  Then I got up, did my night-time routine and went to sleep, bottle of boiling water in hand.  It was miserable.  I was thankful that Chapin was there so I wasn't there alone.  But it was a little bit scary.

 **Spoiler Alert** I am in Johnson City, TN today, March 20. Safe and dry. (And Chip is here! So I'm not hiking alone anymore! So no more worrying in the peanut gallery.  :)  )