“Alone in the Woods”

AT Day 5

Miles: 30.19

Total Miles: 135.93

(Copper Ridge Bald; just past shelter)

Today was a long one. My second day to break 30, and significantly more difficult than the first time now that I’m no longer fresh like I was on that first day. It’s funny though; last night I was completely toasted at mile 27, but tonight I was feeling more mentally drained than physically tired by the end of the night. I ended up hiking a bit into the dark primarily because I needed to get to somewhere that had water before setting camp, but then once I found that I had to keep going on for a bit to find a space to set camp. Sometimes there’s flat spots all over the place, then other times it feels like it can take awhile to find a good place to camp.

I’m beginning to get some reaction from other hikers regarding my miles, and I’ve been lost in that for a lot of the day today. My miles have been big, and not out of necessity. In fact, I’d quite like to do fewer, but it’s not something that I can really do. I have what feels like my comfortable hiking tempo, and I like to hike later into the evening than most others. Really, I see most hikers eating dinner around 5pm (so do I), and then in their tent by six (I tend to be closer to 9 or 10). I only saw a few other hikers on trail today, but had dinner next to a stream with two older hikers. One of them seemed very judgemental of my hiking so many miles per day, and told me that I’m not going to enjoy the trail. I told him that I have been enjoying the trail very much so far, and shortly thereafter we parted. Oh–I think I told him something about my having a lot of demons, and that my demons can only do around 25 miles per day, so as long as I keep ahead of them then I’m good.

Most of the hikers I’m meeting started around 7-9 days before my beginning at the Approach Trail.

But I still meet hikers in trail towns, and I’m motivated to go into town tomorrow for that reason amongst others. I may or may not stay at a hostel, as I’ll be getting in somewhat early. I only have 10 miles of trail to the road crossing that will lead me to a couple of different hostel and resupply options. I had planned another two days before resupply, but I’ve reached a point where my appitite is quite ravenous and I’m eating quite a bit on trail.

On that note, I’d like to say again that I’m still eating so much better on this trail than I have on others. It’s hard to eat healthfully out here on the trail itself, but I’m doing a whole world better than I did on my other trails, and I think that it’s really paying off. I feel so much better! I’m also thinking about food in town tomorrow. I’d like to get fruits and steak if I can find one; not to bring to trail, but to devour while I’m in town.

I’m still keeping up with the pushups… 10x per mile. I still have 80 that I need to do in my tent here before going to sleep tonight to account for the extra miles after sunset. No doubt that’s helping keep my appitite up.

As a whole today was a somewhat lonely day. Like I said, I only saw a few other hikers, and I didn’t talk to most of them for long. It is coming to my attention that much of this trail is going to be pretty lonely at my current pace. I do not want for it to be that way, but I suspect that’s sort of how it’s going to be. It worries me a little bit, as I find myself getting metaphorically lost in these forests. There aren’t a lot of view points or changes of scenery. It’s a lot of forest for a lot of the day. It’s pretty lonely in the forest alone.

Wormwood.