“Sweltering Heat”

AT Day 73

Miles Today: 27.70

AT Mile: 1342.1

(High Point Shelter [tent])

I dont think that I’m going to write much this evening. I am extremely uncomfortable.

I’m sitting here at the High Point Shelter picnic table with Plinko and Stranger. And it’s so humid and hot that I have my camp towel wrapped around my neck. Every 30 seconds I have to wipe the beading sweat from my arms and face.

It’s 8:12 at night and the temperature is reading 88 degrees. The humidity… it’s so hot and wet that I can’t stand it. Add to that, as the sweat becomes so heavy that it’s a film of liquid over every exposed surface, the mosquitos and flies are so thick that the moment they land on you they start to flounder and drown and writhe. So I’ve spent the day soaking wet, itchy, breaking out all over my legs, covered in mosquitos, and sometimes hating everything in the world.

Today was rough.

It could have been a lot worse. I try to count those blessings. But fuck man… today was rough.

One of the things that I dislike the most about hiking is being wet and sticky. And I’ve become nothing but that.

Oh–let’s add to the fun: Ticks!

Before today I had seen 2 ticks in total. Today I got one imbedded in me, and picked 4 more off of me. More than double the amount I’d seen the entire trip, just in one day.

Everything is so wet. It’s like being in a steam room. It’s extremely hard to handle this.

The next two days will be significantly hotter. It will become dangerously hot, with heat indexes well above 100 degrees.

We started today on trail at 4:30 and it was already 82 degrees and humid.

It rained for a couple hours mid morning and that saved us!

We stopped at BBQ with the other group we’ve been around. They’re a group of 5: Haribo, Pleasure Thief, Caboose, Worm, and Goodwill. The three of us–Stranger, Plinko, and myself–have been connected with the other 5 for about as long as the three of us have been hiking together.

As I talked to them today about our plans moving forward, it looks likely that we’ll all end up in Greenwood Lake on Tuesday afternoon (day after tomorrow). I’ve got a package mailed there, and have to go in anyways, and we may all split a room… if they have air conditioning.

Fuck it’s so hot out right now. And it’s going to be so much hotter tomorrow. There is only one point in all my thru hiking that can be compared to this. It was a spot on the PCT and it only lasted for about 2-3 hours. But it was so miserable that it made me want to end the hike.

This is rough.

I’m almost out of food.

Plinko and I will go into Unionville for food resupply tomorrow, Stranger will continue up trail to the town just north of here with a drive in movie theatre. The group of 5 and him are going to camp there and watch movies, I guess.

Then the next day we’ll hit Greenwood Lakes.

Shit… it’s so hot out. I’m struggling here.

I have to end this.

Tomorrow we’re getting up again at 4.

Boots joins me on Friday. She’ll hike with me Friday and the first part of Saturday. Then a friend in CT will pick us up, bring us into his place, and we’ll zero together for the weekend. She flys back on Monday. So we’ll have two full days and two part days together on this trip.

We’ve been talking most days still. Texting daily. I’m looking forward to seeing her. Not looking forward to her seeing me in this condition… this reduced and awful and broken, but looking forward to the time off trail.

Finishing it now.

It’s too hot to keep writing. Too much sweat.

It’s going to be a long night. A longer few days.

Wormwood.