Tag: backpacker

Start: Kind of Outdoorsy Hostel. Stop: Kind of Outdoorsy Hostel. Today’s miles: 0. Total AT mileage: 124.2 miles

I woke up to the sound of hikers getting up and getting packed. I moseyed out of bed and it was so nice to not have anything to “have” to do. Although, technically, that’s every day, but knowing today was a zero day just felt that much more exciting.

I spent the morning hanging out with a few folks not rushing out, and some hikers that had hiked in this morning and was planning to just shower, resupply, and head back out. A lot of the NOBOs are coming through, and man they pull some big miles. I’ll be crushing big miles soon I hope.
Lizard and I walked to the quick mart and got our next week’s worth of food. Curmy and Cholula came over and we did a little pack shakedown and I managed to get rid of close to 3 pounds of stuff!

We all walked to the post office together and then to get ice cream. SO. GOOD. We hung out and chit chatted, walked by the lake, and then all went back to our “homes” to relax, nap, stretch, etc.. I ended up finishing an audiobook.

Today was so very necessary. My feet feel relaxed and less swollen, my knee hasn’t bothered me a bit. I laid out on the picnic table out back and stretched out while getting sucked into my book.. and it finished just in time to go to dinner 🙂

We ate at the little pub, drank a few beers and had some great conversation. I had a fantastic time. We came back to the hostel and some new people are all here that I haven’t met. It looks like every day will have new folks to meet. Some will feel like family, some you’ll be thankful they hike so much faster than you. Hahaha

Start: Kind of Outdoorsy (AT mi 1149.2). Stop: Peter’s Mountain Shelter (AT mi 1160.6). Today’s miles: 11.4 miles. Total AT mileage: 135.6 miles

I got up around 6:30, tried my best to tip toe around the room of sleeping hikers, and quickly got ready for the day. By 6:45 I was at the little restaurant across the street waiting for them to open. Uphill, one of the hostel hikers last night came over and was waiting with me for a few minutes before the gentleman opened the door and let us come in. We decided to eat together since we were the only ones there, besides two other local men. It was kind of cute, one of the “regulars” brought us our menu and brought Uphill his coffee, saying, “I like to be helpful when I can.”

Uphill is section hiking Maryland and Pennsylvania. He’s from Roswell, GA.. not far from my hometown at all! It was neat to chat him up this morning. The guy working the restaurant was also pretty cute. He says the owner is his best friend, so he came out of retirement to help her out when she can’t be there. He only charged me $2.65 for my egg and cheese sandwich. After we ordered, Cholula and Curmudgeon came in and ordered their breakfast, too.

I was the first one out the door and on the road to start the day.. simply because I knew they’d all catch me on the uphills. The bad part about being the first out, I walked into like 58472528393635383937253 spider webs crossing a bridge. I’ve never been happier to have my rain jacket on (it literally caught the majority of the webs). I started off swatting each one off of me-and then that turned in to just going for it and wiping them off at the end of the bridge.

After the 2 ish mile road walk, the trail went over some railroad tracks and then straight up into the woods. Up, up and up I went, then rocky scrambles for a while before walking along a ridge. The whole way up I was praying to see some pretty views of the town and water below-but it was all obstructed by the trees.

There were a few nice view points though, and I took my time and explored every single one of them! The last one, I sat at with Curmudgeon, Cholula, Towely, and Uphill and ate my Combos from town and finished off a Gatorade a trail angel gave us on the way up 🙂

We hiked the last little bit to the shelter. It’s a huge nice one, and I’m going to sleep upstairs in the shelter tonight. The privy is “full” so that’s a no go (not that I’d be successful there anyway, I’ve already dug a hole once today).. and the water source is straight down 300 rock “steps” and roughly 0.2 miles, but it felt farther. Going down isn’t bad, coming back with 8 pounds of water.. holy hell. My heart rate got up to 178 bpm on the way up! Hahaha

Lizard made it to the shelter before the water venture and she filled up to. I swear out of the 7 people I saw come up from the water (myself included) she was the only one that didn’t look completely wiped. Bad. Ass. She stretched a bit and headed on down trail, looks like someone has her trail legs!

We also met Quicksand and Hawk.. both of which are pretty AT famous. Quicksand is on his 4th AT thruhike and Hawk on his 6th. They were pretty awesome and very humble for all the popularity they’ve achieved on trail/YouTube.

Curmy, Cholula, Towely and I all ate dinner together. Mine was just a Knorrs pasta side with Buffalo chicken (from one of those pouches like tuna fish) mixed in. I won’t lie-it was weird, but so good. Cholula dehydrated her own meals from home over last year and had them sent in their resupply boxes. Tonight they had an italian Mac and cheese with veggies in it. I got to take a bite-it totally put my weird concoction to shame.

The 4 of us are staying in the shelter tonight, several other folks are tenting nearby. It’s not even 7pm yet and I’m slap worn out. Maybe my trail legs will show up tomorrow! hahaha

Start: Peter’s Mountain Shelter (AT mi 1160.6). Stop: Yellow Springs Campsite (AT mi 1174). Today’s miles: 13.4 miles. Total AT mileage: 149 miles

I woke up today around 5:30am-that seems to be when the sunlight starts to creep in through the shelter.. I definitely refused to get up though. I rolled the other way and waited, knowing I’d wait to hear the others start moving before I got up. They seem to be natural early risers.. so the fear of waking up at 10am was subdued. I finally got moving about an hour later. Packed up and ate breakfast, then hit the trail just before 8am.
Today was a hot one, mid 80s, and man did I sweat enough to prove it! There were some rocky areas, but overall the terrain wasn’t too difficult. Even typing that out sounds funny-because I was still hiking at a snails pace, but i enjoyed it, even the uphills.

I was able to zone out a bit by listening to an audiobook as I hiked. Some might say that it takes away from the experience to do that.. but I don’t think so. I was able to take in the scenery, hear the birds chirping from my left ear, and be apart of a murder mystery in my right ear. And with the headphones that actually plug in to my phone, there’s no power wasted to charge them, and I can easily pause the audiobook with the little button on the earpiece string, which I do every time I notice anyone coming or passing.. so I can exchange pleasantries and not be a jackass that doesn’t speak when spoken to. So far, it works for me!

The miles went by quickly in the beginning. Just after 11 I caught up to Cholula and Curmy at a beauty of a stream. They were eating a snack there so I decided to join, and I soaked (very short dips at a time because it was super cold) my sore feet in the water while I ate 🙂 it was phenomenal!

The rest of the hike seemed to drraaaaaaaag on. And on. And on. My feet started to get sore and I took some more ibuprofen but they just felt achy the rest of the day regardless of the medicine. I did share the trail with the cutest little animal. I’m not sure if he’s a ground hog, a very fat marmot, or a beaver without a beaver tail.. but he was cute all the same. I came up on him and he ran up trail.. and we did this little dance for almost 10 minutes. He’d run up trail, I’d get there, he’d see me, run up trail.. hahaha.. eventually i started recording him, while trying not to scare him and give him space (I’ll post the video to Facebook, and on the video I’m zoomed in a lot, so don’t think I’m that close).. he finally darted off trail for me to pass, but stood on a log and just stared at me, looking annoyed that I made him go into the brush!

At mile 10ish I passed the last water source before our planned campsite three miles ahead. I filtered my small water bottle immediately and drank a zip fizz (lots of electrolytes and some caffeine) to help me get through the next 3 miles, and then filled up my 2 2L CNOC bags to filter my water at camp.. with that 4L I have enough to drink at camp, cook dinner, cook breakfast (oatmeal and coffee at least) and then have at least 2L to hike out with tomorrow.

While I was sitting a moment, contemplating life knowing my pack now weighs 8 pounds more because of the water, Cholula and Curmy caught up to me and got water, too.. but they told me they had just seen a HUGE rattlesnake! Curmudgeon almost walked right into it with his hiking poles and ended up jumping only when he heard it hiss at him! They showed me a picture and holy Jesus that thing was enormous! God knew I didn’t need to see that thing today!
We we made it to the campsite area we were aiming for, we picked out spots for our tents and set them up.. not long afterwards, Towely came around and he saw the snake too! And got video! So very creepy. I prefer my marbeavhog over their animal siting ANY day!

After we ate dinner and were all cleaning up a bit, Hot Sauce and Farout came walking up. They are flip floppers as well, and know Towely (not sure if I mentioned them yesterday, but that’s when I met them, last night they stayed in their tent near the shelter). Once we all got to talking, I learned that they were the couple Kevin and I saw at the post office in Harper’s Ferry that looked upset sitting outside my very first day. Come to find out, that’s the day they started, too and their package arrived but the post office sent it back to their house, so they were stuck trying to figure out how to start the trail without the things they mailed to themselves. Small world this little hiking community is.

We searched what felt like the entire forest and eventually found a branch to hang our food bags from. This is the campsite that had a bear come through a couple nights ago (thanks to the app we all use out here, Guthook, we were able to know this ahead of time and prepare ourselves accordingly). I think all 6 of us are praying no bear decides to come through tonight, i definitely don’t want one sniffing around my tent!

Here’s to sweet, uninterrupted, no bear having dreams. Goodnight, y’all!