Hiked today: 22.9
Hiked total: 1228.5
To katahdin: 948.5
Yesterday we hiked 23.7, I got the days confused.
We woke up to lots of fog. We thought it was supposed to be nice, so we were confused. We packed up and went to get breakfast. We walked all over this tiny town trying to find it to no avail. Finally we wave down a car and I asked him where it was. He said about a mile and put of town. So we start walking. As we are walking, two women drive up behind us and offer us a ride, as they were going to the diner too. So we gladly get in and drive there.
The diner was good, and we filled up. A nice couple was sitting next to them, and we talked with them for a while. Since we got confused as to where the diner was, we ended up getting to the trail late.
We started up a big up hill and went through LOTS of rocks. We hit pinnacle and pulpit rock which were two beauty spots, and we were lucky it was a nice day. The fog went away quickly and the warm sun was shining all day.
Andy saw his first snake today (a small garner) and made a very high pitched noise and zoomed ahead. I laughed.
Soon after, before we hit pinnacle, we hear 'the world famous dusty camels' from just over a hill. Andy says hi, and I assumed it was someone we had met, however he introduced himself to this gentleman. We thought maybe he had met Dennis and Dave and told him about us, but he said he knew about us from shelter logs. He is doing a flip flop type trip, and was behind us for a while, and asked his wife to search online, where they discovered this site. Footnote (the guy) told us she had been following our journey, and that he had been waiting to run into us. He offered is a big pack of granola, home-dried fruit, and two packs of shrimp. Normally, we wouldn't tale food from another thru-hiker, but he told us he had been carrying it FOR us, so we graciously accepted. He was very nice, he wrote a book about the blue ridge parkway, and is now doing one on the AT. Unfortunately, we forgot to get a picture with him, but we wanted too!
And to Mrs. Footnote: thanks for keeping track! And we hiked a lot of the blue ridge, but we could see the AT the whole time and it was the same amount of miles!
After we left we had a long stretch with no rocks, stopped for lunch, and continued on. On our last up hill and 5 miles of the day, I felt weird and was basically right behind Andy on the uphill (which is rare when its more than half a mile) after that, we hit a LOT of rocks, big and small, and andys feet and ankles were hurting, but mine were fine, and I shot ahead. For some reason, I was hoping and jumping and just trucking through all the rocks. I wanted to ride this energy spurt as long as possible and actually got to the shelter before it went away.
When we got to the shelter, it was later than we had hoped due to the late start, and two guys named detour and Jeff were here. Detour knows a lot about the trail as he finished section hiking it last year. So we talked, relaxed, and now we are going to bed.
via BB
