With a late evening comes a late start the next morning. It didn’t take too long until we hit Snow Monkey and Wonder Woman’s site. They were down the trail maybe a half mile or so. As we headed their way I told Warthog that I felt like I was walking down the road to a friends house to see if they wanted to hang out. He agreed it felt like that.
We were a bit slower today than normal. We took a couple of extra breaks, one was at an overlook where you could see a section of the Skyline Drive peaking through the trees. Mist hung in the air.
We weren’t sure if we were going to get bad weather today or not. The forecast said it was coming and the skies sure seemed to agree, but for a long time, it held off. Right before lunch it rained. It was a heavy rain for about 45 minutes or so, most of it we were under a shelter for. We used the time for our lunch break. While there, we met father/son section hikers. The son came in first. He sat just behind me as he took off his tall leather boot. It had filled with water and when he was able to free his foot, water splashed all down my calf. It was hot, smelly, foot water. He sheepishly apologized and I tried to make a joke to pass it off. I know it was an accident. It was still kind of gross. But also hilarious. Turns out, the guy had just graduated college and was moving to Kalamazoo for a new job. It really is a small world.
After leaving the shelter we had a short while of clear weather. Then the rains started again (this is where the camera got put away for the rest of the day). This time, it was much heavier and longer than before. There was a flood warning for the trail today, something I didn’t know until I was in it. As we hiked, the water began to run down the trail truly as if it were a river. At some points it was ankle deep. I was racing debris down the hills as a game. It started off okay, kind of fun even. But after we had summited our mountain and continued down, the temperature dropped and our bodies started to get cold. In fact, the bones in my feet hurt from the cold water. We had to be in the rain for at least two hours. During it all we hit 900 miles. It was an exciting moment, but one we couldn’t really celebrate for too long because we wanted down and off of the mountain. We heard thunder, but didn’t see too much lightening. Later I met hikers who watched a tree get struck just ahead of them a bit. I’m glad I wasn’t in their shoes.
Finally we hit a road crossing and started our hitch to a campground. We needed to get dry, warm, and clean. A quick four mile hitch took us to the park entrance. The campground was only another seven or so miles after that. It took forever to get a ride. I get it, we are wet, stinky hikers and people were starting their vacations. What they didn’t know was we were very cold, wet, stinky hikers and needed the hitch today more than anything. Finally a truck stopped and we could get a ride further down Skyline Drive.
When we arrived at the campstore, Wonder Woman gave us hot chocolate to warm ourselves up. Warthog took a shower. I changed into dry clothes. Finally the rain stopped. It was late enough that we decided to stay there. Hikers “Leap Frog” and “Extra Mile” offered to split a site with us. You could have unlimited tents with a max of six people per site. Lucky us, the men next to us had too many cars and needed a parking space to use, so they paid for our campsite. Turns out, they were a group of friends who had attempted the AT but fell short. They seemed over the moon to hear we were thru-hikers. Later, they even brought over Mountain House freeze dried meals for us to take. It was food bought for their own adventure and now they get to fuel ours. They were beyond generous and I was sure to thank them repeatedly. Their gift saved us from having to purchase something like four dinners, three breakfasts, and two desserts. Woot! Woot!
We ended the night with a partial fire and warm hotdogs that Warthog and I bought at the campstore for all of us to split. Then we made plans to slack pack the fourteen miles of trail that we skipped to get to the campground. We would start where we left off, slack pack it to the campground where a tent would still be set up with all of our items in it, pick it all up, and then continue on another four miles or so. Knowing that tomorrow we get to slack pack makes the discomfort of today totally worth it. I love hiking free of the weight and am greatly looking forward to tomorrow.
-ansel