My daughter, my dog and I just got back from an overnight at Leroy Smith shelter along the AT between Bath and Wind Gap in Pennsylvania. "Crash", a HF member, is a shelter watcher for this shelter and took me to it last Thanksgiving weekend. We (daughter, dog and I) had a good time last night despite (don't tell anyone) we slept in the shelter. I had a Hennessey and, let me tell you, it does not make a good pillow. It slides around too much.
We got there a half hour later than we intended so dusk was about to be upon us when we arrived at the shelter. My daughter wanted to hang in the shelter. Since there was no one in the shelter, we took a look to discover it was built so tightly that there weren't cracks to run suspension through. We would have been hard pressed to get one hammock up, much less two. While my daughter visited the privy, I checked out the spot where Crash likes to hang to the left of the shelter. Just when I decided two pairs of trees would probably work, I glanced down to see a dead raccoon at the base of one tree. No go on that!
We still didn't need headlamps except inside the shelter but we still wanted to gather wood for a fire so I let myself be talked into staying in the shelter anyway. The forecast was for gusty wind and rain starting during the evening so that helped sway me. I had an almost torso length CCF pad in my pack and a torso length, but thinner, one I had carried up in my hand for the pup, who tried to reclaim it every time I got up!
We had a nice evening with a medium size fire. The wind was mostly from the south and gusty - the fireplace sheltered the fire and let the smoke chase us around. The temperature never dropped much below 50* but the wind and humidity made it a little cooler so that the fire felt nice. I made a foray for wood when we ran low after dark and discovered that you can see dead falls that are hung up in other trees and bushes easily if you shine your headlamp straight out or slightly up.
About 9:30 it started sprinkling and got a little heavier within 15 minutes. Another 15 minutes and we were under quilts and in sleeping bags drifting off to the sound of a solid rain. And we, or at least I, were up throughout the night to roll over to alleviate pressure points. My daughter had a short CCF pad and clothes as a base layer. Spread on top of that was an ENO doublenest, topped by a full length DIY 20 degree down quilt. My daughter laid on this and covered up with a JRB Hudson River.
I had a torso length CCF pad that is pretty thin but is thicker than a quarter inch. I guess it's 3/8" but it doesn't seem like it. On top of the pad was a KAQ Potomac and a heavy wool sweater used under the torso. I took the KAQ off one end of the Hennessey Expedition and rolled the HH up to use as a pillow - it only worked okay as it was slippery and kept sliding away all n night. I used a Montbell Super Stretch 32* bag on top of all this. I was warm but not overly so in light fleece pants, a long sleeve wicking tee shirt, long sleeve 100 wt fleece quarter zip shirt, heavy rag socks and a pair of DIY wristies (my daughter saw them and asked, "Are those socks?"to which I replied, "No, but they once were."
Oh well, they helped!)
This morning we fixed breakfast (pop tarts, bagels, orange juice and hot chocolate) and headed home just as the light sprinkle turned back into a downpour. Except for the flat trail near the bottom, the blue blaze trail was in great shape back to the trailhead.
All in all, we had a good trip. Other than the dead raccoon, the shelter was fine and ship shape except the floor is real hard.
Jay
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