Night Three – Blood Mountain Shelter

I’m trying to catch up on writing because things got tough and I wasn’t in a mood to write about things for a bit. I had decided to push on to the Slaughter Creek campsite at the base of Blood Mountain but because of the high winds and crappy weather when I got there I decided a shelter was a better option than a campsite. That whole fear of getting crushed under a falling tree getting the best of me. Which probably would have been true normally, but maybe not when the shelter is at the top of a mountain. Regardless of if it was the right decision I pressed on to the top of Blood Mountain and reached the shelter right as it was getting truly dark. It was pouring rain and the winds were high but the lightning and thunderstorms hadn’t arrived yet. Those were waiting for a midnight surprise. The shelter is a stone structure with two rooms.

A few things to note about this shelter, it was described as dank, which I thought was because of the open windows and door situation. The first room has a old bricked off fireplace an open door and two open windows. The second room has a door into the first room and two open windows. I quickly decided two openings was better than three in this rain and chose the second room. I didn’t have anyone else to consider seeing as I was the only person insane enough to be up there in that weather.

So I got started on making myself something hot to eat and trying to figure out what I was going to sleep on since I’m a hammock camper and had no sleeping pad. After some hot chocolate and ramen noodles I had decided to take all my extra clothes, put them in stuff sacks and ziplocks and with my sit pad, ziplocks of clothes and empty pack I had something other than cold hard concrete to lay on. I laid my hammock over everything layed down on top of it top quilt over the top of me and then safety pinned the hammock around me and the quilt. I was plenty warm, but very far from any semblance of comfort. As I’m shifting around trying to get my lumpy clothes bed to conform to my body so I can get to sleep I get hit in the forehead with a big drop of water…then another…then another. Turns out the roof leaks, a lot. I managed to inch worm my self down about 6 inches to stop the water torture forehead drip but resigned myself to the fact that everything was going to be wet in the morning.

Between the howling winds, a branch hitting the roof, and the lightning and thunder I didn’t get much sleep, but I made it to sunrise, if you can call it that since the clouds were so thick you couldn’t see the sun it was just less dark.