The weather forecast today wasn’t great but another zero day would’ve been too much so we (Cricket, Prarie Dog, Ric Flair, Caboose, and El Dorado) all headed out. Cricket managed to lose her hiking poles but found a mostly functional set in the hostel up the street to help keep her going.
The first few hours of the hike went alright but the rain started to fall right before lunch. We thought we’d be clever and climb up into a fire tower and eat lunch warm and dry. However, once we got up there we found that there were no windows or doors so we sat up there with the wind blowing in the rain getting soaked while sadly eating our lunches.
The hike wasn’t too long, which was nice, but my feet still hurt by the end. I think I’ve resigned myself to having sore feet for the next ~1900 miles. They feel alright each morning, somewhere around mile 5 they start aching and by the end of the day they’re pretty worn out.
We pushed on and the rain stopped about an hour before we reached the shelter. Naturally, the shelter was already full when we arrived so we pitched our tents and hung out for a bit.
Eventually the rain started up again and we all retired but continued bullshitting through the tents. If we keep this up we’ll have to start camping away from the shelters because I’m sure we’re keeping people up with our chatter.
Day 31 Mileage: 11.0 mi [Hot Springs -> Spring Mountain Shelter]
Total Mileage: 294.0 mi
Paul – how is your gear holding up, now that you’ve had several hundred miles to test it? Tent? Rain kilt? Backpack? Can you detail those for me or write a post? Great progress by the way!!
Oh and I forgot – the plug-in on your blog about your trial progress: (Follow my progress, updated whenever I have signal.) – how did you get that on your blog? Can you share or explain that feature?
Sent you an e-mail, let me know if you need any more help getting it working.