Well that wasn’t that bad! The worries about the weather were unfounded – it ended up being a beautiful day for hiking. A little cloud cover, lower humidity and great temps. That combined with some of the flattest and best terrain (for the first 3/4 anyway) let us put in a 20 mile day on the day I crossed the 300 mile mark.
We left camp a little after 8. There was a little climb up to Big Firescald Knob, which had some of the most technical bits of trail for the day. The sun melted off dinner of the fog as we got up there and we had great views. I hit the 300 mile point just a bit later.
We pressed on to Jerry’s Cabin Shelter to get water and ran into a hiker laid up in the shelter talking with some of his other friends. He had suffered an Achilles injury as well and was waiting it out to let the swelling go down before he tried the trek out. It was at least 9 miles to the closest road crossing. His friends made sure he had enough water, food and phone charge. It can happen to anyone.
There was one pretty easy climb out of the shelter and then a super cruzy long stretch to get us to 14 miles for the day. We knew the last 6 would be a little tougher so took a break at the base of the climb for water, stretching and snacks. We started the climb around 3:45 and made it to camp at 6:30.
This might be the most full camp I’ve been in since Georgia the night before we climbed Blood Mountain – there are easily 30 people between the shelter and the tent sites, a majority of them through hikers.
The forecast for tomorrow calls for rain again. Let’s hope they get it wrong again!
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