To get into the NOC yesterday, we hiked down 7 miles. That meant we had about 7 or 8 miles of all ascent today. In order to get the courage to tackle the task, we went out for a warm breakfast.
It was a slow morning. Mostly because I could not bring myself to move. My whole body hurt from the push the day before. We left the NOC sometime between 11a and 12p.
Today was the first day on the trail that I was actually proud of myself. When we started, I truly did not think I could make those 7 miles. Really. My legs were so weak from the 20 miles the day before. I was worried that I would get halfway up and we would have to figure out a place to camp. But I made it. It took us 8 or so hours to hike 10.4 miles (that includes lunch and other breaks), but we got up the ascent and then hiked beyond that.
We had lunch at the top of the mountain, looking out at the valley below and the ridges across from us. Later in the day, we stopped at the top of another mountain and took time to just soak in the view. It was incredible. It was even more so knowing that we went up and over many of those ridges.
We could have camped there and enjoyed the view, but decided to push just a few more miles. We got into the campsite at Locust Cove Gap at 7p, that’s pretty late. By then, all flat spots were taken. It was crazy busy, worse than Logans Creek. People were literally tripping over tent stakes and lines.
Ben and I got a sort of, not really flat spot near the fire pit. It was the best we could find. By 8:05p we had set up camp, ate dinner, and gotten into the tent. Almost everyone else had gone to bed already. It felt like a sleepover in our parents basement – that’s how packed we all were. You could hear everything; every shift, every cough, etc. Around 11p I gave up and asked Ben for a pair of earplugs. After that, sleep finally came.
-ansel