Thunderstorms last night destroyed any semblance of sleep I may have gotten, and waking up with a wet tent slowed down my morning. After I set out though, everything was smooth sailing.
I decided to hike to the first shelter, at 8.5 miles, and then eat lunch. I met up with some older gentlemen section hikers that we've been keeping pace with, as well as Punchline. Lunch was brief though, and then I set back out. I don't walk extremely fast, but I also don't stop moving, so I make good time.
The second half of today's hike was supposed to go uphill rather steeply, and then be flat for 4 miles to the shelter. Mr. Fantastic and I even laughed at how easy the end of the hike was going to be this morning. How wrong we were!
After making it up to the ridge line, it twisted and turned, went up and down, climbed rocks that looked impassable. It was beautiful and fun, but quite the challenge. Today was the first day I was forced to drop my hiking poles and climb using my hands. The two photos I posted are from the same spot on the ridge line, looking left and right.
I made it to the shelter at 3:30pm, making good time (7 hours to hike 15.5 miles). Once there I immediately pitched my tent, grabbed my bear bag, and went to the table to be social with the 2 other hikers eating. We hadn't met before but they had apparently already heard of Mr. Fantastic and myself, which I found amusing. Word of mouth is an interesting thing out here.
People shuffled into camp one and two at a time, all saying the same thing: "I thought I had passed the shelter already!". Everyone's distance gauge was off thanks to how slow we all moved along the precarious ridge line. It's a lot of fun to see people coming in who just finished the same hike you did; seeing them in that state of exuberant exhaustion that you just relaxed and ate your way out of.
Everything is still pretty wet and soggy, no clothing dried today. But the rainless fog grants us the songs of the tree frogs, which always help me to sleep. Tomorrow is 14.7 miles, then a short day Thursday. We had planned to aim for Erwin to hitch to Damascus, but it seems like a pipe dream. Instead we're going to stick with Dick Flap, Stonechair, Meta, Optimus, Tapeworm, and Purple Rain. That entire crew plans to hitch from a highway we'll cross on Thursday. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday are the big party days, so we don't want to miss those. It's a lot of zeros packed close together, yet our pace is getting better all the time, so I don't see it being a problem. I'm ready to see all the people we haven't seen in a while, and I'm ready for some sun shiny days. In theory tomorrow will be one of those. Here's to dry socks and a full solar charger!
