Random thoughts, musings and things I think are interesting…
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Day 24 – stealth site by Jones Meadow to Hogback Ridge Shelter
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…
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Day 23 – Rich Mountain Camp to a stealth site by Jones Meadow
The word of the day today was: moist. It rained lightly overnight on and off. We got lucky in that it let up around wake up and breakfast time. But it was cloudy and on and off rainy all day. Honestly it was a little welcome since it made some of the climbs a little…
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Day 22 – Stealth camp site about 7 miles from Hot Springs to Rich Mountain camp
Today was a hike sandwich with a town stop in between. I woke pretty early after not sleeping well from about 4 on. It was supposed to rain today, but not until 11 so I had not put up my rain tarp. The sound of anything hitting my hammock cover made me convinced it was…
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Day 21 – Groundhog creek shelter to a stealth camp site about 7 miles from Hot Springs
Today was another big day. Thanks to some easy terrain and some perfect weather, I covered nearly 19 miles in 10 and a half hours. I’m setup to be able to roll into Hot Springs tomorrow early afternoon and get a shower, do some laundry, eat and resupply (always do it in that order lest…
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Day 20 – Cosby knob shelter to Groundhog creek shelter
Today was a fun, but long day. I left last night’s camp a little after 8 and rolled in to tonight’s camp around 8:30. 12+ hours on trail and nearly 18 miles (more if you count the side trips I’ll get into below). My initial plan was only 16 miles, but the creek near that…
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Day 19 – Pecks corner shelter to Cosby knob shelter.
I woke up around 6:30 (for the second time – the first was around 3:30 when someone decided to get a really early start on the day and was getting their bear bag down from the cables). I wanted to laze a bit, but I had the forecast from the night before in mind, so…
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Day 18 – South of Indian Grave Gap to Peck’s corner shelter
What a difference a month makes! Everything is in bloom and the weather was amazing. I started the morning at the Laughing Heart hostel in Hot Springs. I was leaving too early to get breakfast there so I moved my car to trail parking behind the hostel, grabbed my bag and walked down to the…
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28 days later
Writing this from The Smoky Mountain Diner in Hot Springs NC. Waiting on my breakfast and my shuttle (hopefully in that order) back to where I got off trail 28 days ago, just a little south of Newfound gap in the smokies. I’m coming back with a slightly lighter kit and an entirely revamped approach.…
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Adjustment
While I still have 3 more weeks of rest and rehab, I think I’ve come to some decisions about what’s next. There’s more I’ll share here in the next few weeks on what went into these decisions / what I learned about myself / the trail from the start of my TH attempt (and some…