Today’s planned 10 mile day didn’t happen. It wasn’t a bad day’s hike or anything like that. My knees are still in quite a bit of pain, so I decided to do an easier 3 mile day to this shelter. It’s probably a good idea; a couple miles from here there is a 1.5 mile stretch of terrain that AWOL describes as “rocky and strenuous.” It’s so strenuous, in fact, that there’s a blue blaze bypass trail. With my knees feeling the way they are, I don’t think hiking that bit in the afternoon would’ve worked out too well.
So I’m now in a situation where I have to cover 50 miles in 3 days if I still intend to make Erwin by Monday. It works out to about three 17 mile days on average. By shelter spacing, it works out to 13, 19 and 18 mile days. We shall see what happens. I’ve really screwed my plan by taking this short day, but it is what it is.
There’s a bunch of other people here tonight. Trisha and Janet (formerly refereed to as “forgot her name”) are here also from the hostel. Also from the hostel are “the rainbow group” but they haven’t arrived yet. Then, there’s a group of 5 staying in the shelter who are on a short 5 day section hike. 3 of them did 500 miles of the A.T. back in 2015 and had a lot of fun stories to tell. One of them is an actual Opera singer – i just heard him impress a group over at the shelter! The other 2 shelter dwellers are friends that are on their first backpacking trip ever.
Oh, I almost forgot – last night at the hostel, we had a fire to end all fires. The owning family’s house caught fire back in January. Since that time, they’ve slowly been demolishing the remains. The final demolition happened last night, in the form of fire. Ragin Cajun would’ve been jealous of this fire. The owner’s son soaked the remainder of the wood (basically just the floor and two small walls) in gasoline – not kerosene. Once lit, the results were a blaze like I’ve never seen before and probably never again. For a blaze like this, once was enough!
Anyway, I had to share the fire story as I realized I failed to do so in yesterday’s post. It’s now 830pm and I’m off to an early night’s sleep, leading to an early morning rise and departure.
Wandering on…
Mojo
Great comeback, Mr. Mojo! Woohooo!! BTW I was trying to think of the name of the famous “Trail Angel” from Erwin, who also spoke at the 2015 A.T. Kick Off, and your recent post helped me remember: Miss Janet!! She also gives advice on Post AT depression if you do a search on her. She often hikes the trail and shuttles hikers at various points. Since you blog so well with amazing detail, I was picking up on your and other hikers’ diet, especially eating in town on 0 days. Much evidence now that depression and mood swings can be triggered by food allergies like gluten in wheat foods that are GMO infused. Sandwich breads, Ramen, pizza, beer–oh yeah! Gluten-free beers like Red Bridge and some hard ciders, that you may never find in most trail towns, aren’t a bad sub! Guess I would probably starve thru hiking, but now thinking about being the first to offer gluten-free trail magic:^) Perhaps call it the “Happy Hikers Diet”, or Not All Gluten-free tastes like Cardboard! Maybe Miss Janet would have some better suggestions:-0