Day 46: Shaker Campsite

Start: Tom Leonard Shelter (AT mi 1530.3). Stop: Shaker Campsite (AT mi 1541.6). Today’s miles: 11.3 miles. Total AT mileage: 516.9 miles

Oh, last night was a night. My tent inside the bunk thing worked well, until some time after 3am. An owl started hooting, and then mice or some other type of rodents started going bananas in the shelter. I could hear them scurrying all over the place-and apparently over and through my shoes, which they knocked off the top bunk, then making my trekking pole fall and causing my tent to fall onto my face. Not that I was getting any decent sleep before that, but still. Holy hell.
I got up after 7, still frustrated that I couldn’t sleep. I packed and took my breakfast over by where Lizard, Sauce, FarOut, and Towely had camped. I ate while chatting with them and then we slowly got out of camp sometime around 9ish.. maybe a little later.

I was able to keep up with the 4 of them for a few miles, on the easy terrain, but once it went uphill I wasn’t able to maintain their pace. They are quick! Within the first mile or so, we ran into Tie-Dye, TownLegs, TBird, and DoubleDecker coming the opposite way! They were slack packing today. They all looked so light and carefree. I need to slack pack soon! Who wants to drive up here and be at my beck and call? Haha

On the uphill, which was nothing like the terrible climbs the other day, I was getting a little hard on myself. I hike so slow in comparison to my friends (I really always hike slow, this isn’t new, ask Andrea lol). I was complaining to myself that I’m overweight and I shouldn’t have let this happen.. if I had taken better care of myself last year I would be able to keep pace.. bla bla bla. And then I remembered a friend’s FB post the other day. She posted about body positivity, and honestly it resonated with me. I’m always so hateful to myself over this body-the one that’s done almost 40 half marathons, several 200-550 mile hikes, 2 sprint triathlons, so many other running races I couldn’t keep count, climbed Kilimanjaro.. like seriously?! I need to learn how to have some grace and be thankful as hell that this body I’m in keeps waking up (well, I’ll learn some grace over the whole lack of sleep thing, too) everyday and allowing me to hike this hike. Even if it is at a slower pace than I’d prefer. I’m still freaking doing it.

I got to the picnic area we were meeting at to eat lunch and go swimming. Which is exactly what we did! We ate, Sauce let a guy borrow his lighter to start their grill, so he gave him some beer. We had blue moons and hiker tortilla food.. and then we swam. In all of our hiker glory! The day people are probably like who are these dirty people swarming our beach in their undies? Weekends can get awkward at times.

We sat out in the sun to dry out, then started hiking again.. FarOut and Lizard hiked in their “bathing suits” I hiked in my mine too, just with my shirt over my top.. mainly because my pack would rub me raw on bare skin. But, hiking in just undies was very freeing, and helped me dry out my horrible returning heat rash quite well. I’ve been doing all the things to help prevent this heat rash, it doesn’t seem to matter. Lizard even shares her special face wipes with me-haha maybe they will start helping soon. Something eventually has to give? Right?

I actually hiked decently fast (for me) to the campsite we were aiming for. I started thinking about all the reasons I was choosing to be out here. And how, as absolutely difficult as this is, it doesn’t compare even a smidge to how difficult work was this last year. Out here I’m struggling physically and mentally with my personal strengths and weaknesses, but I’m not holding the hands of someone taking their last breath, or catching a 26 year old daughter as she starts to collapse after she realizes her mom is no longer alive, or any of the multitude of heart-wrenchingly sad things I’ve witnessed this last year. So, in comparison, I’ll take this type of “hard” over the actual “hard” stuff I’m used to doing.

Once at the campsite, I set up my tent. I think this is the key to better sleep, actually being inside my tent, bug and hopefully critter free. On the way here we were worried that there wouldn’t be enough room for us all.. kinda like what happened to those NOBO hikers we met way back when that were pissed there weren’t any spots for their 7 tents.. haha now our tramily is like theirs.. we need space! And if the campsite was full, we (I specifically lol) would have to keep hiking until a decent enough stealth spot was found. Sometimes that’s easy to do, sometimes you’re miles up on a mountainside and nothing is even semi flat for a really long time. The next shelter is another 10 miles from here.. let’s just say we were all quite thankful we fit 🙂 FarOut and Sauce got their tent on one of the wooden platforms, Towely got the other, I found a flat spot for my tent (I have to stake my tent regardless, it isn’t free standing). Lizard hung her hammock and there were 3 other tents and another hammocker already set up.

Our group ate dinner together, and then Wizard, Killer, Sweeps, and Lilo came back from their dinner (family picked them up at the road and took them to a restaurant). They brought back stuff for s’mores! So, they all set to make the fire-which was a challenge at first. I think Lizard and FarOut had the magic touch, along with the fresh cut shavings from Sweeps. After the fire got going, Lizard walked over and got the other hammocker, I’m blanking on his name now, to join! And he did 🙂 Before we went our separate ways, Wizard did a few magic tricks for us. He’s damn good with a deck of cards! I never once saw how he did the tricky things he did! It was pretty impressive!

Tonight was the almost perfect summer solstice party! The only way it could have been any better is if the rest of our tramily was here, too. Cholula and Curmudgeon had taken a zero in the last town, and I don’t know if Derby did, too.. Beaver is a day behind after he took a zero in Salisbury, and Costa left trail from Kent, because he has a surfing trip in Costa Rica to get to (can we say jealous?). It seems like after I got my phone in Kent everyone has dispersed. I know we’ll eventually reconnect or split more, it’s the nature of the trail and timing. It truly made that last river party that much more epic.

Sorry I’m so long winded today. I’ve had a lot on my mind. I’m thinking I’m in a better headspace now, I guess time will tell on that one. Sweet dreams, y’all. Let’s pray I fall asleep to these frogs and crickets chirping and sleep soundly all night! Tomorrow is a big mile day!