Sunday, July 12 9:43 pm 22.9 mi Janne and Carter and Jeremiah
AT 1081.9 Rocky Mountain Shelter → AT 1104.8 Pine Grove Furnace campground
Weather: Hot, muggy, rain PM into overnight
Trail Conditions: Trail magic before Tom’s Run shelter. Large, ice cold Gatorades were chilling in a slowly flowing water source
My Condition: Sore, but happy. Mentally overwhelmed by the fact I’m over ½ done with the AT!
Made good time with Matt, Pat, and Kelsey this morning. Long day to get in to Janne, Carter, and Jeremiah but well worth it. Caught Toy Story at ½ point for 2020 AT, where we took a picture together before he caught his shuttle from the nearby parking lot. Really enjoyed hiking with him. He didn’t want to continue onward, knowing he’d be hiking 25 mi/day and outpacing all of us. Alesia and Dennis came for dinner, quesadillas over the fire. Rain poured as we huddled under makeshift tarp structure.
Post Trail Analysis
I’m so glad that Pat, Kelsey, and Matt got to experience some of the trail with me. I hope that they enjoyed the experience as much as I enjoyed seeing them! Since we had stopped at the early shelter option the previous night, I knew I’d really need to crush some miles today to get to Pine Grove Furnace in a timely manner to meet Janne, Carter, and Jeremiah. I always roll my eyes a bit when someone utters the phrase “it happens for a reason,” but I wouldn’t have felt the pressure to move so quickly without that time crunch, and without moving so quickly I would’ve missed out on seeing Toy Story again before he got off trail. I’m glad that our paths crossed this one last time. Mike Tyson once said that “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth” and unfortunately COVID punched a LOT of us in the mouth in 2020. I have no doubt that in a normal year, Toy Story finishes his thru hike no problem whatsoever. It had to have been hard for him to make the decision to get off trail and see his original hiking crew, who didn’t get off trail, go on to summit right around this time. It can’t have been easy for him to get off trail yet again, this time for the start of law school, only to see this new trail family continue onward to summit as well. There’s genuine joy in seeing your friends accomplish great things, but there’s also got to be an undertone of “that could’ve been me.” It should’ve been you too buddy! I hope that he’s able to get back out at some point to finish the trail, and last we spoke I know that was still his plan as he returned to Pennsylvania to knock out the rest of the state during his break.
It was great to see some more members of my camp family, this time with the added benefit (mainly for them) of me being able to shower! I scrubbed the stink away as thoroughly as I could. If you’ve been a thru hiker, or been around thru hikers before, then you know that there’s only so much you can realistically do...at this point the aroma is kind of baked in to your body, your clothes, your gear, everything. I remember hearing a story last year about a couple of thru hikers being kicked off a flight home shortly after summiting Katahdin, despite having showered and bought new clothes from a thrift store, for their smell. There are times when you notice how smelly you are – right after you get out of the shower and come back in to your room with all your gear, you get a pretty heavy whiff of it. Generally speaking, however, you go completely nose-blind to it. Your nose certainly hasn’t lost its smelling powers, though, as you can quite literally smell the soap, shampoo, deodorant, laundry detergent, perfume, and various other aromas wafting off the hikers you pass who are just out for the day – smells I don’t generally notice on people stood out emphatically.
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