Day 28

It was a chilly morning. We woke up early to watch the sunrise from the top of the mountain. It was gorgeous and worth a little loss of sleep. We packed up and headed out for today’s hike towards town. After a short distance we reached Whiteface Shelter. The shelter is three sided and is very small but had a great water source. The shelter was packed with a large group preparing for their hike. After seeing the shelter and the amount of people, we were very pleased we decided not to push to this shelter last night.

The trail was almost vertical after leaving Whiteface Shelter. If it was anymore vertical, we would have needed a rope to climb it. Luckily, the trail has lots of roots, which can be used as hand holds. The summit of Whiteface Mountain has a great outlook.  The summit is worth the hike up.

After heading down the summit, we proceeded towards Bearhollow Shelter. The trail had some large muddy area’s but we were able to maneuver around most of them. The trail became flat the closer we came to the shelter. Dreamer and Tiny Turtle walked ahead of Family Mule and I. Poor Dreamer fell but Family Mule and I were a little ways back. Tiny Turtle tried to help her up but couldn’t. When we reached her she says, “I’ve been stuck here for what seems like forever”! We all just started laughing as we pulled her up, backpack and all. 

Bearhollow Shelter is a very nice shelter. It is placed on the top of a large rock face.  The shelter has bunk beads and a table in the middle of the shelter for easy food preparation. A nice fire pit and another table is placed in front of the shelter. During our stay we saw a group of three hikers and the two women we met early on the trail out for a day hike. 

The trail remained flat and followed a road after leaving Bearhollow Shelter towards 15. We hiked around half a mile when the two ladies we met picked us up and took us to Jefferson to stay the night. We ended up staying at Smugglers Inn which has a restaurant on one side! The owner was extremely friendly and so was the staff. 

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