Day 24, July 23, 9.6 miles

My, oh my. A totally sleepless night in a shelter full of snorers and wind suckers. I think I need to learn to set up my tent in the rain. I even had earplugs and that didn’t work. I’m going to ask God when I get to heaven what the purpose of all that noise is. Is it a punishment for the people around snorers? It surely doesn’t seem to bother the snorers, for goodness sake, they don’t even hear each other snoring, so it doesn’t seem to be a punishment for them. So why does God allow anybody to snore?? I know they can’t help it, but it’s the one thing that’s going to push me over the edge. It’s not the tiredness of climbing and walking and starving and being wet and dirty and smelly and hairy–NO—ITS THE BLOOMING SNORING that’s gonna drive me mad!!
Ok, enough. No more snore talk. I’m going to get over it—hopefully.

Exhausted, but thrilled with today. It was full of rock scrambles and true hand and foot climbing. I had to put my poles away so I could climb with my hands. What a blast. It’s really hard with fat butt Olfrie on my back. My shoulders are sore from pulling us up and over all these rocks. My legs are stronger, but man what a workout. Yep, it was a one mph day. We climbed Mt. Webster and then Mt. Jackson. We walked along Webster Cliffs and the wind was downright cold and whipping at about 45 mph. There were great views, but we couldn’t linger because we would freeze to death or get blown down.

When we hiked out this morning, another guy, Wandering One, a minister from Charlotte, NC joined us because he didn’t want to hike alone either. So–and then there were four.

You guessed it. I’m tenting tonight in the rain and I don’t even care if I have to carry 2 extra pounds of wet tent weight. I’m going to sleep tonight.

I’m over 100 miles into New Hampshire. I think I have about 57 more and then I’ll be in my last state. Loving New Hampshire, but I’m looking forward to getting another state behind me.