It was a cold morning and today will be a colder day. Luckily, Lotus gave us a Carnation Breakfast Essential to split. A lot of people eat these on the trail. We haven’t bothered because we don’t want to cook anything in the morning, even if it’s just heating up some water. But today, with the cooler temperatures, a warm glass of chocolate was especially delicious. Sold. Next time we resupply we will buy these.
Yogi was still here. He gave us a bit of water to get us by until we hit a more convenient water source. It was probably the thing that I appreciated most about our visit wth him. He was a unique personality – one that I’m not sure is all that worried about making friends.
Warthog, Lotus, and I were leaving camp around 9:15a. It was some incredible hiking and we took a lot of breaks to be able to appreciate it all… or maybe we were just a bit tired still. We ate lunch at a shelter about 7.5 miles in. Afterwards, we hiked stronger.
In the afternoon we hit an overlook called Spy Rock. First you pass through one of the most gorgeous campsites I’ve seen on the trail yet. It’s all flat with moss covered ground, there are flowering rhododendron trees everywhere, and the light was coming through it all in the perfect way. Petals covered the forest floor and it made me want to lay down in them and have an “American Beauty” moment while they fell from the trees. I mentioned this and turns out, Lotus was thinking the same thing. This place was that magical. Unfortunately, there was no water. Meaning, we can’t stay.
After the camping area you reach the overlook. You have to scramble up rocks to enjoy the views – which were amazing by the way. The tops of the rock had a couple of small pools left over from rains, etc. Atlas and Lotus sat and watched tiny tadpoles in those pools. They even found an albino one! After far too long of a break, because we still had many miles to cover, we climbed back down the rock, through the campsite, and back onto the trail.
A couple of miles down the trail is a shelter called The Priest. It sits at the top of a climb with the same name. It’s tradition that people write a “confessional” in the trail log. I had totally forgotten this and when we reached the turn off for the shelter, I chose to forgo visiting and continue making miles. Later I realized I forgot to engage in this tradition and made plans to enter a confessional in the logbook for the next shelter.
It was getting close to dark and we still had four miles to go. Mostly it was downhill which would be a piece of cake, except it was extremely steep and rocky. You had to place your feet carefully or risk a rolled ankle. We got into our campsite for the night right as the sun was setting and the dark was coming in. It put us at 18.8 miles total for the day.
We were in a wetter part of the woods with lots of bugs, even roaches. Warthog started a fire to raise our spirits (it was a long day) and smoke out the flying bugs. It also helped Lotus and Atlas find us since they were getting in after dark. As we sat eating dinner in this not so pretty site, I thought about Spy Rock and wished I would have been willing to call it quits there. Although, I know the extra mileage we made today will allow tomorrow to be an easier day for us. Tomorrow, we only have about eleven miles to hike. That’ll put us at a local brewery that allows thru-hikers to camp on their property for free. We are all excited for this.
-ansel