So now I remember why I don’t sleep by roads. It wasn’t so much the constant traffic as it was the one car that rolled in about 11 o’clock and stayed until about three opening and closing their door seemingly every 15 minutes I’m not sure what that guy was up to, but it was no good in at least as much as it kept me awake.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to sleep in either since the sunrise was quite bright and the birds were happy to tell me about it. I was up and out by 6:30, changed, fed and packed up by 7:30. A couple through hikers I met at Black Bear hostel that were slack packing showed up right as I was ready to leave so I talked to them for a bit and hit the trail by eight.
Right out of the gate was big climb that was straight into the fog. It stayed pretty foggy until well after 2 o’clock. in the fog and without the sun, it was actually pretty cool which was nice when you were hiking, but sucked as soon as you stopped if you’ve worked up a little bit of a sweat because you started to get cold, this happened to me at my first stop at Vandeventer Shelter. I would’ve liked to stayed a little while longer to rest and snack, but I just got too cold.
On the move again, I was about a mile down trail when I realized I probably should’ve gotten water at that shelter. Today was mostly a ridge walk, which meant limited opportunities for water. I started to conserve and made it to the next spring just about the time I was getting really thirsty. I filtered one bottle of water, added some electrolytes and chugged it. I filter the second bottle of water and drank it as well. I filtered the third bottle of water to carry with met
To avoid getting cold at this break, I put on my fleece and beanie. I still got pretty cold at the stop overall so left my fleece on when I started hiking. That lasted all of about a half a mile since the sun came out and I started the climb. There was just no winning with the weather today. I probably had more costume changes than a Taylor Swift concert.
While I was at the last break, I got passed by pretty much everyone on the trail. It’s a mad dash to Damascus the last few days the slack packers are getting off early and going today. Spaceball was one of the many hikers that passed me, which surprised me a little bit since I thought he was at least a day ahead of me. Seems the norovirus is still a thing on the trail folks. Wash your hands! Another through hiker that passed me (rapidly) said he was trying to do a 44 mile day today to get there by midnight. Not this hiker!
I yo-yoed past a bunch of the people that had passed at the next water stop. I rolled into camp for tonight after a little over 15 miles it just after 5 o’clock. The sun did come out right as I made camp, which let me hang up some things to dry. Even though today was pretty flat for some reason I was pretty wrecked so I got some more water and made a recovery drink and lay in my hammock for 30 minutes. Thus revived I got the rest of camp set up, cooked dinner, hung a bear line, journaled, and made this post.
I only have 11 miles to my pick up point tomorrow but I need to get there by one so it’ll be a fairly early morning and departure just to make sure I make it in time. And then… It’s trail days!
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