AT: Mountaineer Shelter to Moreland Gap Shelter

There was more snow on the ground when we woke up this morning. Where is all this snow coming from!? This was not in the forecast!

Buster did much better hiking today. He seems to be getting the hang of hiking on a lead. I am concerned about his paws, though. The last mile or so today he was limping a lot and I had to stop many times to clear the ice chunks out from his toe pads. I'm pretty worried about this. I know that if this persists, the webbing between his toes will start to tear and bleed. Today we covered a fairly moderate 10 miles, but later this week we have a 13.5-mile day and a 15.9-mile day. I don't know if his feet are going to hold up.

Here's a view of an Appalachian rhododendron that I photographed today. Snow-covered rhodo leaves just don't compute! I'm accustomed to seeing them vibrant green and decorated with big pink flowers — not frigid and drooping under the weight of snow! Um, hello? Whose idea was it to come here in November!?

We are at Moreland Gap Shelter tonight... not nearly as nice as last night's shelter. This is an old one, built in 1960. Some goofball decided that its open side should face northwest, which means all the cold and wind comes blowing right in. Which maybe isn't a bad thing in the summer, but right now the weather is continuing to decline and snow continues to fall. Tim's got a little portable radio with him, and he picked up a weather report, but there's no way it could be right. They're saying the temp is in the 20's, but we are experiencing terribly bitter wind and cold. As an old mountain man and fellow hiker told me several years ago, the mountains make their own weather.

We tried like crazy to build a fire this evening to dry out our snow-soaked boots, but the fierce wind and dampness from the snow made it impossible.

I cut the sleeves off my wool sweater tonight, so that Buster could wear it more comfortably without getting tangled up in it, and Tim gave up one of his polypropylene hiking shirts so that Buster could also have a base layer to wear. He's making quite the fashion statement in this get-up, let me tell you. He's very, very cold, even when wrapped in the fleece pad that I brought for his bed. Right now I have him bundled up in my sleeping bag with me and he is still shivering.