Update on my toe.
Instead we got wind, a lot of wind. It just kept on coming.
The trees seemed like they were alive swaying around.
I ran into Mother Goose again. She's so tough being out here. She told me that Dungeon Master had passed her along with the fact that he Mariyln Monroed her with his kilt as he went by and she saw all. A kilt isn't the best of choices in high winds like this.
I was informed that there were hurricane force winds on the way, up to 80mph. I was worried because the trail keeps heading up and up and up along ridgelines but others kept going. At some point I had to sit down and take shelter from extreme gusts of wind by curling up in a ball behind a tree. Branches were falling everywhere. I had to walk on such a silly angle leaning to the side to compensate for the wind!
It got really bad. I found a small cave. More like a hole in a boulder that I wedged myself in to rest and take shelter.
I heard a large crack. I knew a tree was coming down. I had watched so many just fall down thatI knew what this was. This time it was close. I stopped to look around to see what tree was falling and where. Then it occurred to me that it was close, I screamed "MOVE MOVE MOVE" in my head as I quickly moved forward a tree falling right behind me in the space that I had been standing moments ago. It was a smaller tree but it would have done me some serious damage. I was so scared and shakey. I had tears coming down my cheeks. There's a hostel not much further that I was considering going to but this confirmed thatI was headed straight there.
I had heard bad things about the Greasy Creek Hostel. While I stayed at Uncle Johnny' s a number of people called to get rides over from the Greasy Creek Hostel. First of all it was a long .6 mile steep downhill which I'll have to hike back up tomorrow morning. The area was so gross with so much trash in the creek. I saw a broken toilet down there too.
The bunk house was falling apart with smashed up windows. More like a nasty old shed. The woman who ran it had so many rules it drove me crazy. It had started raining when I arrived. Two other hikers joined me. She made us take our shoes off outside and leave them outside to be rained on and our socks wet. We all had to wash or hands as soon as we entered and there was no trash for our used paper towels so I used the trash outside the bathroom which wasn't good enough. She made me reach in and take it out to put it in a trash bag on the other side of her house. She had pages and pages of rules everywhere and then even more! Her house looked run down and almost like a hoarder house which was so strange compared to all of the rules.
She did have her husband (I think) take orders for dinner and run out to pick up the food for us. I bought 2 pints of Ben and Jerries ice cream from her resupply store (her mud room). I've never eaten that much ice cream in one sitting before but I think that it means I can do the half gallon ice cream challenge midway through the trail. She just had so many awesome flavors that I've never seen before that I bought 2. I did stressfully survive the evening as the place filled up with an absurd amount of hikers taking shelter. I am thankful to be indoors though.
Tonight at Greasy Creek Hostel I'm camped at mile 367 with 1822.8 left to go.
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