The mornings have been cool lately. I like the lower temperatures, you don’t feel like you are melting quite so much. It is, however, difficult to get out of bed when you are cozy under covers. This morning was another battle of wills. Eventually responsibility won out and I got moving.
We packed up pretty quickly and headed down to Joe in site twelve for coffee and eggs. Including us, he had about eight or nine hikers. Joe is a generous spirit. I kept trying to get his address to send him a “thank you”. He would only give his email. Earlier in the week a hiker walked off with one of his battery packs. Joe thinks it was by mistake. I would like to give him or her the benefit of the doubt like Joe does, but I also think every hiker knows exactly what’s in their bag before leaving. I wanted to order one off of Amazon to send to Joe as a surprise with a note attached. I may email him and try to persuade him to tell me.
Photo Above: Trail angel Joe (wearing the hat) and 2017 thru-hikers.
It was around 8:30a when we were leaving the campground. After about a mile we were hitting the AT. The terrain was fairly easy, although my legs still seem tired. We stopped by a pretty epic shelter in the morning. It had a scal for weighing packs, menus to order in pizzas and all kinds of other things. We spent too long there, drawn in by the extra amenities. Eventually we kept on keeping on. By early afternoon we had covered ten miles. We held off on lunch so we could eat at a pizzeria less than a half a mile down the road. Everyone split a pizza, I ate a salad. I wasn’t trying to be healthy. I just thought my gut would explode if I tried to hike on greasy cheese and a salad was the only thing that really called out to me.
It was close to 4p when we were leaving the pizzeria. We still had at least six miles to hike. That’s another three hours. In those six miles there was only 900+ feet of elevation gain. We flew through this stretch pretty easy and I was grateful for the break. Today was a beautiful day. The weather was cool, but warm enough. We had the perfect amount of breeze. If you started to sweat, it wasn’t long after you stopped that you felt fresh again. My feet still hurt but my whole body isn’t tired. That’s a positive.
As we hiked we heard a rattling noise. It was right next to me so I jumped a bit. We looked, expecting to see a rattlesnake. Instead, there was a cicada on the ground. By the looks of things, I was certain the poor thing was dying. It would flap its’ wings but would only skip around on the ground like a wind-up toy. Warthog leaned over to pick him up. He threw him up in the air. The bug went up, started to dive down to the ground and all of a sudden we watched it soar off towards the trees. It was an incredibly beautiful thing to watch. I’ll admit, I was much more moved than I probably ought to be. All hope seemed to be lost and yet, it flew off into freedom. It’s the sort of conquering odds that many stories are built on – a victorious moment, all because Warthog saw what I couldn’t.
We got into camp just after 7p. We hiked a total of seventeen trail miles. Plus an extra 1.8 miles if you count the campground and pizzeria. Warthog was still full from pizza, so we had a lighter dinner. We actually made a lunch tortilla and had chips. No cooking, just a little preparing. We did it all from the safety of our tents. The mosquitos are literally out for blood. If I stay outside in their swarm for too long, a sort of rage comes over me. It’s best to hide inside our screen and canvas. Dinner was topped off with sea salt and chocolate covered caramels made by Sanders. It’s one of our favorites. Jenny had brought them when she visited. Luckily, it’s been cool enough that they haven’t melted. We have four left. I promise that we will savor every single one.
Every night after dinner Warthog has to hang our food bags. Well, I guess he doesn’t have to. He just should if we want to have food to eat or avoid bear encounters. Surprisingly, we’ve heard some people are comfortable with using their food bag as a pillow. That’s a little bit too much for me. We will hang ours. As Warthog went out for this nightly ritual, he threw the rope (with rocks attached) up over a branch. I heard a cracking noise and the branch broke and fell to the ground with a big thud. Almost immediately after that Snow Monkey’s branch did the same. Warthog found a new branch and again, it pulled down. One more branch after that broke before he found one that would hold. It was a absurd to tell you the truth. Now it makes us nervous to be camping under these trees. We tried to choose our spot wisely and pray we were successful. It sure would be awful to have a branch (or worse) fall on you at night.
-Ansel