Today was a weird one. Yesterday it was so hot and humid that I was hiking shirtless. When I woke up today it was sleeting and snowing. I slept in because the dampness made the cold so much more unpleasant. Eventually I put on my wet clothes and wandered out of camp around 10 am.
Everyone dealt with the cold differently so we all broke camp at different times. I hiked solo for most of the day. The first few miles were pretty downhill and I made up some time for starting late. I caught up to Prairie Dog and since he was hiking with both headphones in I took the opportunity to sneak up and scare the crap out of him.
When I finally sat down for lunch I felt like I’d covered 15 miles instead of just the 7 I’d actually done. Since I was only in the middle of a solid 5 mile climb so I took some ibuprofen with lunch and that helped a little. The trail was tight and rocky, it took a long time to go the 1.4 miles to the top of the ridge.
The tree line finally opened up and there were some great views to make the climb worth it. I caught up to Iron Man, a 79 yr old Brit and he helped me showcase how steep the trail was – check out this week’s video for his cameo.
I also came across an abandoned Jeep on the trail. It had lottery tickets in it from last week so I’m guessing it hasn’t been there too long. My best guess, it was stolen and dumped – though how and why they brought it up here is beyond me.
Made it to camp around 5:30 pm and crawled into the tent after I ate dinner. It’s just too cold to socialize tonight. On the bright side, I passed the 300 mile mark today.
Day 31 Mileage: 15.9 mi [Spring Mountain Shelter -> Jerry’s Cabin]
Total Mileage: 309.9 mi