Ferocious Storm: Marion VA

The storm came through ferociously. The shelter I'm in is aptly named: Hurricane Mountain Shelter. 

As I hear branches crashing in the dark I am trying to remember if this shelter is made of sturdy logs or just boards. Food bags blow down. A hammock strung under the shelter eave gets blown like a wind tunnel, and the occupant repeatedly adjusts the tarp cover until eventually abandoning it and coming inside. 

This would be a very tough night for tenters. If a tent blows over then the sleeping bag would be wet instantly. No safety net. I've experienced that once and only had time to wrap the collapsed tent around the bag on jump in and hope enough of the bag stayed dry enough to keep warm.
The only lines of defense after that are a survival shelter (e.g. climb into a trash bag under a rhododendron and pile a few feet of leaves over you) or start eating and hiking and hope you can keep the furnace warm until you get out.

Is it safe out here? Yes, but less safe than good weather. They are fewer levels of safety net. For example if you roll an ankle on a dry day, you can just sit there and wrap it or perhaps ice it in a stream. But in cold rain, hypothermia forces you to quickly make a choice to wrap and keep walking or pitch a tent and get in a sleeping bag. And since so many hikers bail out to hostels or hotels the odds of another hiker coming by declines in bad weather. So whether it is safe or not depends on whether you have a plan and the skills and gear to be able to handle situations where one bad thing can rapidly progress to several bad things as the fair weather safety net unravels.

I hope everyone on the mountain is safe. 

By mid-afternoon the rain has stopped and I get to dry out a little. The creeks are all still furious and the trail muddy but I slowly grind out the 19.8 miles to get to Marion and meet Spirit for the first time in 260 miles. 

Spirit flew all night and then drove up to the trail. Fourteen days after we said goodbye we arrived at the trailhead on VA 16 just five minutes apart.