Day 10

Beech Gap to Rocky Cove Knob - 17 miles

Pushed out a crazy 17 mile day today in order to get us as close as possible to Frankin. Once again slathered on the sunscreen and set off. Today was our 100 mile day. We made it to Carter Gap Shelter first, which marked our 100th mile walked on the trip (including the approach trail). The shelter itself was dilapidated and falling apart and covered in signatures and graffiti including this gem: "Welcome to the Hell of Rodents, Skunks, and other Tazmanian Devils". It wasn't until we ate and left that we realized we were at the OLD shelter and the new nice one was just up the trail. Oh well, we had already eaten, so we walked on to tackle Albert Mtn.- one of the steepest uphills yet. The last 3/10 of a mile was pretty much straight up. At the top was an awesome lookout tower that was a tuqlly some sort of research lab, so we couldn't go in, but we could still climb the stairs. We said hi to the dude that was sprawled out resting on the on the rocks beneath the tower. We climbed up to take in    
the most spectacular 360* view yet, took some photos, and climbed down. Next we hiked to Glassmine Gap which marked us having passed our official AT 100th mile. This was where we had originally planned to stop but there weren't any flat spots and although a helpful sign said there were excellent spots ONLY 2 something miles down a blue-blazed trail, we decided to go on further. Eventually we got to Rock Gap Shelter, which seemed really full, so we ended up going all the way to Rocky Cove Knob, the last mtn before Winding Stair Gap. Almost at the top we saw 'Postcard', who we met the day before on Standing Indian Mtn. He told us about the hiker shuttle to town the next morning. We pushed on a little further until we found a flat enough spot to camp then settled in for the night. We were a little surprised by our milage for the day, and it kinda seems like in North Carolina the climbs may be bigger, but they're longer so you can do longer days easier- hopefully that makes sense. We were tired, mike's hands were burning, and the shuttle was at 9am the next day, but we're loving every moment of it. Hung the bear bag and went to bed. Strond wind gusts all night.