“Meeting Trail Friends”

AT Day 6

Miles: 11.28

Total Miles: 147.21

(NOC, Georgia; hostel cabins)

Here’s something new for a change: I’ve actually connected with some other hikers. Connected well enough that we’ve collectively spent about half the day in this little tourist-trap road-junction that the AT passes through, and we’ve collected 6 of us together to split a cabin for tonight.

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Last night it was cold though. I hiked until late last night to get 30 miles, but fell asleep quickly. It wasn’t going to rain, but I decided to throw up my rain fly to keep a little bit of heat over night. Even with that however, it was cold cold cold. It was the first night that I really shivered, and felt like I had trouble staying asleep in the cold and wind, but when I woke up this morning my Garmin watch said that I had the best night sleep of the trail–actually better than I had been sleeping before the trail even. It’s been almost a week now since I’ve had any alcohol, and my body seems to be adjusting to the trail and the miles. Again, I’m really feeling like my nutritional approach has been helping.

I wanted to sleep in this morning on account of hiking so late last night, but I was woken up by the sun around 8:30am. As I was making breakfast and breaking camp, two hikers wandered up trail, and stopped right beside my tent. One of the two pulled out her phone and started a phone conversation over speaker. That alone was pretty astonishing, but then it just went on and on. She was literally yelling at her phone while she made a reservation for the hostel this evening for more than 10 minutes. It was so awkward that I grabbed my coffee, slipped out of my tent, and walked over to them (only a few feet away). I stood there awkwardly, watching them as I sipped coffee, as if watching some animal in a zoo. The lady on the phone acted like she didn’t see me there while her partner–an older dude–became progressively more embarrassed.

I saw them later today up trail. They appologized for being rude and told me they’re not thru hiking. That made sense to me.

I got chased by a mamma hen today. Not much more to say about that. But it was funny.

The pain in my heel has been up and down, but nothing overly concerning at this point. I actually feel pretty good about the feeling of my body right now.

I knew that I was going to be walking through this place called the NOC, but didn’t know much about it until someone mentioned it yesterday on trail. About 2 miles before arriving I stumbled on a guy beside the trail, a thru hiker, smoking weed. I immediately made light of it, telling him that it was rude to not envite me, and we struck up a conversation. It was immediately clear that we had a lot in common, and we started hiking together for the rest of the way to the NOC. He’s been with a trail family for the last week or so, and introduced me to them. I quite like them. We’ve all decided to stay here at the NOC hostel, sharing a cabin for 6 for the evening. We all could have comfortably gone back to trail with the time we had left in the afternoon, but this place is fun, and hanging with hikers is somethign that I haven’t found before this.

I have floated the idea of hiking with them for longer. They are doing bigger miles than most people I meet on trail, but they’re still a lot fewer than what I’ve been doing or what I comfortably cover in a day. I’ve discussed the possibility of their leaving here earlier tomorrow, camping together tomorrow night (which would necessitate my slowing down a bit still), and rolling into Newfound Gap together. They all want to go to Gatlenburg, and that would be a lot slower for the next two days for me, but I’m also curious about sticking with them. We’ll see how it feels on trail tomorrow.

I’m well showered and sleeping in a shared bunk with the others this evening. Still not drinking alcohol and feeling really good about that both physically and mentally. I have really enjoyed drinking NA beer in trail towns like these. I likely will pack a couple of them up trail for the energy of cracking a beer at the top of mountains.

The forest is still consuming and lonely. There are demons in there that I’m finding, even this early on, and there are things ahead that I find myself afraid of. But for now, I had a really great day today and have really enjoyed connecting with a trail family, no matter how short that may be lived.

Wormwood.