Absolutely the wettest morning we’ve ever seen on the trail. We spent 100 times more time slogging through ankle deep water on the AT today than we did with our four stream crossings yesterday combined. Several times the AT was a waterfall, looking like ones back in the mid-Atlantic states we had to divert a good ways from the AT to see!

Fortunately, at least, the rain stopped this morning just as we were getting back on the trail. The weather was chilly, windy, and foggy in the morning, but by the time we took a lunch break on Third Mountain, we had moved to “not a cloud in the sky” conditions. GOMan was the only other hiker we saw out on the trail all day. He joins us here at the shelter tonight with Mad Hat, who zeroed here today to let the Pleasant River’s west branch recede before he tries to ford it. We hope it’s low in the morning. With the clear skies, it looks like we’re in for a cold night…

We had had big plans to cover a lot of miles on the 19th, and pick up our food re-supply. However, if there was ever a case of having to “take what the trail gives you,” and nothing more, this was it. While thankful we did not have to pack up a lot of wet gear before heading out, we immediately encountered the AT disguised as a water course. Most of the trail was a flowing stream, except where it was steep. There it became a waterfall.

With our shoes immediately soaked, we quickly gave up trying to avoid the large puddles, and in fact chose them for footplants, as they seemed to provide the best traction compared to the wet roots and slippery rocks. With the wind, we had a chilly miserable morning; and we didn’t linger on either the Barren Ledges or the top of Barren Mountain.

The sky cleared by early afternoon, but even with the sun out, standing out in the wind proved to be very cold. Our only hope was the wind would help speed the drying process on the rocky sections ahead of us. By the time we reached the Chairback Gap Lean-to, we were ready to call it a day. The shelter had been quite full the previous evening, and many folks had lingered there until midday (including the Charon’s, who we continued to trail by a day), waiting to give the West Branch of the Pleasant River, four miles distant, time to recede before they tried to ford it. However, by the time we arrived, only Mad Hat remained from the previous night’s group, he being in no particular hurry and having decided to take a zero. We concluded taking a zero in a shelter alone did not tend to leave one in a good mood…

We knew the name (Chairback Gap) of this shelter well as the location where Rusty Bumper had broken his leg in 2011. The trail north from the shelter, which also served as the path downhill to the water source (which we found flowing, we might add, with gusto!), was extremely steep and treacherous. It was easy to see how a fall here could have dire consequences, and we were particularly careful while both descending and ascending.