Blog

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.

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.