Sat, March 21, 2020 5:51 pm 15.5 mi
AT 50.1 Blue Mtn Shelter → AT 65.6 Deep Gap Shelter
Weather: Just rain last night, light rain early AM, sunny rest of daylight
Trail Conditions: Sweet soft dirt – way less rocky today
My Condition: Sore, but getting used to it maybe!
15.5 mile day today. Hiked with Brent and Which Way almost the whole day leapfrogging back and forth. I tend to make really good time on the uphills and move relatively slow on descents. Lots of climbs and descents today, so I got to see plenty of them both as we’d pass and get overtaken. 2 pieces of trail magic today – ran into 3 mountain bikers from north Georgia at Indian Grave Gap. One of them had some Sport jellybeans he didn’t need for his ride. Score! Also ran into a car with Georgia AT plates near Addis Gap who had taken some truly back-mountain roads to bring a cooler of water bottles, coke, candy, and tangerines. Sadly they weren’t there to thank in person, but I scratched THANK YOU into the dirt by the driver’s side door. Immediately after, we had the final, and the major, climb of the day. Passed by everyone on the way up, who had a decent head start due to my “artwork.” Brent called me “a machine!” as I chugged along past him.
Post Trail Analysis
Again, quite thankful I wrote down trail magic, as the cooler here is the first trail magic we received in my memory. We had some great views today before the downhill where I met the mountain bikers. I did a ton of exercising on the stairmaster machine before the hike, and reading through these old entries it’s quite apparent with how I crushed the uphills and struggled with the downhills, which aren’t trained by the machine. They need to develop one that does BOTH! Or...I could just go up and down stairs.
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