Saturday, July 11 9:12 pm 14.9 mi Pat, Kelsey, Matt
AT 1067.0 Mason Dixon Line → AT 1081.9 Rocky Mountain Shelter
Weather: Hot, humid, rain PM
Trail Conditions: Stung 7-8x by ground wasps before Old Forge Park
My Condition: Awesome to see Pat, Matt, and Kelsey! Still sore/struggling from the 43 mile day
Intended to hike to the Quarry Gap shelter, but I'm still sore, and they don't have thru hiker trail legs yet. Still, for them, a 7.7 mile day is still a pretty impressive! Their sore hips, shoulders, and feet must’ve been exactly how I felt at the start of this journey. Got to introduce them to my trail family. Found out late tonight that Toy Story is getting off trail tomorrow. We knew that was coming, but that it arrived so soon felt jarring. First Cage, then Fresh Ground, now Toy Story!
Post Trail Analysis
I met Pat, Kelsey, and Matt at Old Forge Park midway through the day. I was so excited to see some of my best friends from back in Pittsburgh! As a thru hiker, it can be quite challenging coordinating and planning with people off-trail - I found that it was one of the things that caused me the most stress on trail. It’s not that I don’t want to see and hang out with them, it’s that it throws you off your normal thru hiking routine. Normally, you’re not locked into any sort of itinerary. If you want to hike bigger days, you plan on making it to the next town in 3 days. If you want to go at a slower pace, you might plan on taking 3.5 days of food and stopping at a closer town. You hike it exactly how you want to hike it! It gets complicated when you try to plan on meeting people at a certain time at a certain place. The best way I’ve heard it put – “you can either tell me where you want to meet, or you can tell me when you want to meet...but not both.” As someone still reeling physically from the 4 State Challenge, but as someone who definitely still had my hiker legs under me, you need to plan much shorter days if you want your friends to stay your friends. These three are camp people to their core, and while hiking is definitely in their wheelhouses, keeping up with a thru hiker would be a tall order for just about anyone. Their plan was simple – get me to drink as much as they possibly could at the park before we started hiking to slow me down, and play the “put rocks in each other’s packs and see how long before they notice” game. They got to experience a true taste of the Appalachian Trail – plenty of PUDs (pointless ups and downs), rain, a nice open vista with some great views, and tenting at a shelter area. My original plan was to stop at the next shelter, miles yet further down the trail, but my body was still very much recovering and needed the rest. Puddles and Blue must’ve still been feeling it too, because they had chosen to stop here as well and were already set up, dinner preparations underway. I volunteered to fill up water bottles for my tired companions. In true summer camp staff fashion, they were well underway in preparing a campfire by the time I got back. This would actually be my first campfire of the trail! As I saw the sheer amount of alcohol Pat unloaded from his pack, I laughed to myself thinking about base weights. I did my best to keep the conversation volume low as we drifted past hiker midnight, cognisant that my trail family were trying to get some much needed R&R as I caught up with my camp family.
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