Day 10

Miles: 12.1 
Total Miles: 132.3 

A great day of trail magic! I Ieft my campsite at somewhere around 10 and had made it across my first bald and about 6 miles when I across who else but Ben, Kelley, and Dave, all people who'd stayed at Gooch Gap the second night out. They'd taken a couple zeroes too so I'd caught up with them much faster than I'd expected. I had lunch with them up on a summit and decided I'd stay with them for a while to work on pacing myself.

We were headed for the next shelter and were coming to a gap with a mile climb left when we saw cars and lawn chairs. About 20 or so past thru-hilers were in a little gravel parking lot grilling and sitting around talking. They immediately offered us beer and burgers which we were quick to inhale. We stayed down in the gap for over an hour but eventually pulled ourselves away to walk up the mountain. There was just room in the six-person shelter along with Splitter, another girl from Gooch Gap, and Traffic Director, a pastor from Ontario. Thanks to the trail magic we felt no need to cook dinner but built a fire regardless and stayed up talking until about 10.