I had weird disturbing dreams last night. As in post apocalyptic type dreams where people were half machine and half human, there was a door to another world, battles, etc. It reminded me of Mad Max, but set in a city. I blame it on being super dirty and separated from society.
We woke up to the same sort of weather as the day before. It was windy, foggy, and spitting large raindrops. We walked for a few hours in that. A little ways down the trail, we realized we had actually made if farther the day before than we had thought. Probably a total of 4 more miles in the evening, pushing us up to closer to 11 miles total.
A few miles in, we walked by some trail magic that was just getting set up. Unfortunately, we were too early. It was about 10:30a and they were going to grill hamburgers, etc., for lunch. Ben seriously considered staying, but we had a big day ahead. They still offered us fruit and candy though! We each took a Dum Dum sucker and a banana. Most of the trail today was pretty easy. We had a few minor pushes, but nothing too hard. At least, not until later in the day.
We had lunch at a shelter. The water source there was contaminated with norovirus, so was the one previous to it. A ridgerunner (a volunteer for the AT) told a pair of hikers, who then passed on the info to us. I left a note to warn others. No one wants to be vomiting and having diarrhea. After lunch we had another 6 or so miles to push. There were some spots in those last few miles that were just brutal. All big rocks that you had to be careful where you put your footing – which really slowed us down. As I was “hopping” from one rock to another, I was reminded of the boat launch at Lake Ogema (a lake I grew up going to in the summer). When I was a girl I would go down to the edge of the water and hop along the tops of those big rocks. Same thing today, only I had on a 30lb pack.
As we hiked, we saw a decent amount of bear fur on the trail. Little chunks on 3 separate occasions. One actually had skin attached (a 1″x2″ piece). Uh… what rips off bear flesh??? That’s what we want to be afraid of! We saw some other predator scat nearby, but I couldn’t tell you what it was.
We arrived at the Blue Mountain shelter/camp around 5:15p. It was glorious when we did! We set up, ate, visited at the shelter some. I shared my orange chocolates with other hikers. One guys said it was like going to grandma’s house, where you get weird candy but it’s actually pretty good. I laughed. I was worried I would get the trail name “Grandma” from that comment, but didn’t.
We are shutting down for the night: journaling, cleaning blisters, hanging the bear bag, etc. We have 2.5 miles to go in the morning before we hit the parking lot where the shuttle will meet us and take us into town. I’d like to say I’ll walk fast, but I heard it’s a decent climb and it will be the morning which is usually our weakest time to hike. The shuttle arrives at 9:15a and 11:15a. I’m hoping to hit the earlier shuttle, but I doubt it. It’s supposed to rain tonight and again tomorrow morning. No matter what, just 2.5 miles!!
Today we hiked about 14 or so miles! Our biggest day yet! It pays off since it positions us to have such a small day before going into town. I’m so excited!
-k