I slept so well in my hammock last night, probably my best sleep on the trail so far. I only woke up twice, and once was to use the bathroom. No limbs were tingling from lack of blood flow and nothing was sore when I work up. It’ll still take some getting used to but I think switching to a hammock was a good move. I did order a larger hex fly, the one that came in the kit is just barely bigger than the hammock itself, it’s sufficient but doesn’t leave much extra space. I won’t see my bigger fly until Waynesboro, but at least I’ll get it eventually.
Cricket picked us up in a rental car around 2:30 pm and we set off north with the 90s rap on full blast. We were the epitome of cool, 5 white kids singing along to old rap songs.
She dropped El D and I off at Four Pines around 5pm, we grabbed dinner and started hiking. We considered delaying another night, but it’d been so long since we were on the trail we were eager to make any progress.
We got into Catawba Mountain Shelter around 10 pm and stayed in the shelter instead of setting up hammocks. Tomorrow we’ll hit McAfee’s Knob for sunrise, so I have a 4 am alarm and need to get to sleep.
Day 67 Mileage: 7.9 mi [Four Pines -> Catawba Mountain Shelter]
Total Mileage: 720.8 mi