I couldn’t get moving today. We weren’t leaving camp until 10:30a. Way too late. I’ve had a hard time these last few days getting motivated. Today was a beautiful day. The sun was out. Much of the forests that we hiked through were gorgeous. However, I was in a fog of exhaustion and bad attitude. The mountains and hills aren’t even the worst that we’ve seen, but I just haven’t wanted to go up them. All of my being wants to stay put, but again, you have to move forward. We watched the movie Captain Fantastic and during a teachable moment the father says to the son something like, “There is no calvary, no one is coming to save you, it’s up to you.” That’s what it’s like out here. You have to get yourself through these miles. You might find motivation in other hikers, but ultimately it’s you that has to put one foot in front of the other.
There is a saying on the AT, “Never quit on a bad day”. Today won’t be my last low day, I guarantee it. I won’t let difficult miles and a bad attitude determine my success with the trail. I refuse. I may be willing to sit in it for a while, but I know I will snap back out of it.
The best part of the day? Getting some fantastic news from home that reversed the earlier bad news! It was so unexpected and left me singing praises and the song, How Great Is Our God.
We took a long lunch at a shelter. I got to do some laundry and we got to dry out clothes that were still wet from the rainy weather. Other hikers did the same. While we were there the whole tramily (trail family) caught up. We were tempted to stay, it was a beautiful spot.
However, we knew if we wanted to make a restaurant on Sunday (one we’ve been looking forward to for days now), we really needed to get the miles in.
Atlas, Lotus, Warthog, and I left together. Kirby, Snow Monkey, and Wonder Woman stayed a bit at the shelter yet. We separated from Atlas and Lotus about four miles from camp. It was 8p by the time Warthog and I arrived. It was 9p when camp had been set up and we were finishing dinner. We were just about to give up on seeing any of our friends that evening when they finally started to show up. We were worried they had called it a bit short with night falling. Instead, they all chose to stop and watch the sunset at an overlook.
Kirby arrived ready with a great story. Basically, he thought he was stepping on a piece of rubber. When in reality, it was a four foot long rat snake laying across the trail. When he put pressure down, he felt the thing squirm (as one would when being stepped on). Instantly he realized his mistake. Per his words, he “leapt in the air, screamed, and ran the rest of the way up the hill.” It seemed like a totally rational reaction to stepping on a live snake. I died laughing when he told us the story, then continued to chuckle about it as I laid there trying to fall asleep. Ah… good times on the AT.
-ansel