3 p.m. Hit the trail. It’s a picture-perfect day, with the sun shining and a light breeze blowing through the 60-degree air. Max Patch is all green grass, blue sky and sunshine. 

4:20 p.m. I remember how long a short walk can seem when wearing a day’s worth of provisions, clothing and shelter on my back. After hiking 2.5 miles through still-bare forest — but with spring flowers making their first appearances — my hiking partner and I find the shelter and head on down to check it out. 

4:45 p.m. We chat for a few moments with the pair of hikers already sitting there, and then decide to explore down the trail a bit before returning for dinnertime. I’m quickly glad we did. Rhododendrons and moss make the walk a green one, and the chortling of Roaring Fork Creek puts me in a cheery mood. 

5:30 p.m. We arrive back at camp and look for a place to pitch our tents. 

6 p.m. It’s dinnertime, and we’re hungry. We walk over to the nearby shelter to join the hikers setting up their stoves and making a meal of ramen. Stories are swapped, questions asked, names exchanged. My excitable little dog is as hit, breaking the ice and making friends. 

8:30 p.m. The sun has disappeared and darkness is setting in. The hikers have disappeared as well, into tents or into the sleeping bags spread out on the floor of the shelter. 

9 p.m. Hiker midnight may be 9 p.m., but my friend and I are still a bit jet-lagged. We get out cards, talk over the day and play a few rounds of gin rummy before sleep. 

10 p.m. The wind is blowing, dogs are barking in the distance and the moon is making shadows on the tent ceiling. My own dog curls up in the foot of my sleeping bag, warm and tired. Sleep calls. 

6:30 a.m. First light breaks, and a single bird begins to sing. Others join him, and I contemplate getting up and facing the morning chill. 

7 a.m. Breakfast is instant coffee and a Clif bar. I hang around and talk to the hikers as they depart one by one. 

9:30 a.m. Time to leave camp and head back toward civilization. I wonder what it would feel like to go whole-hog, cultivate the mental toughness necessary to make it to Maine, and then I start dreaming of the warm shower waiting at home. 

11 a.m. Packs are in the trunk of the car, the engine’s revved and we’re heading back down the mountain to Interstate 40, Waynesville and the week ahead.