Thursday, July 2 9:34 pm 21.4 mi
AT 885.0 Blackrock Hut → AT 906.4 Hightop Hut
Weather: Hot and sunny
Trail Conditions: Smooth sailing today
My Condition: Full belly and happy heart. Loving the sense of community right now
Fresh Ground continued his support of us “Core 4” as he called us – myself, Toy Story, Puddles, and Gumby. Caveman, his girlfriend, Catch Up, and Slim also ate with us this morning as we enjoyed strong coffee, breakfast skillet scramble, and delicious blueberry pancakes. We hit the Loft Mountain Camp Store for lunch, where I showered and enjoyed a Yuengling, 2 chocolate milks, a strawberry shortcake ice cream bar, pickles, and a bag of chips. Walked and talked with Toy Story last night talking about the incredible experience of hiking with Fresh Ground, and hiked with Puddles this afternoon, talking about her trail crew experience with not-Americorp (Mt. Elbert in Colorado – rerouted a mile section of trail), bucket list locations (New Zealand LOTR/Te Araroa, Peru, Alaska, US national parks). For the first time since leaving the trail with Brent and Which Way, I feel an incredible sense of community and togetherness with these people. Sadly Toy Story has to get off trail mid-July to get ready for law school at Emory and Gumby may not be maintaining this kind of pace, but we should be reconnecting with Running Bear, Blue Sasquatch, Cage, and Demona soon – Fresh Ground is trying to convince them to rejoin us on trail as opposed to resupplying and zeroing in town, in which case we’d be the “Super 8.” Hamburgers the size of my head and extra cheesy mac and cheese for dinner, and I’m absolutely stuffed. Saw some section hikers who recognized Gumby from a fire tower way back in North Carolina before they abandoned their thru hike attempt – such a small world!
Post Trail Analysis
Thus the streak of twenties in the Shennies began! Toy Story wanted to do big miles to experience as much of the trail as he could before getting off trail to begin law school. Puddles is tough as nails and could knock out this kind of mileage in her sleep. Finally back to full health, I was routinely pushing bigger mileage days leading up to this point. I did feel bad that we may have been pushing Gumby too hard to keep up, but keep up he did. In fact, we were the ones keeping up in reality – he’d get an early start each and every day and we wouldn’t see him until dinner! His preference was smaller mileage days, though. That’s the power of Fresh Ground – he really wanted to support the four of us through this section and we couldn’t have been more grateful for all his hard work. We’d catch him at a road crossing in the morning for breakfast, sometimes see him for a picnic lunch out of our own food bags (or from the famous Shenandoah waysides), and then see him again for dinner at a trailside parking area. We were fully stocked, prepared to do our own meals through this section, and never set expectations on him to show up at a specific spot in order to feed us, but our eyes always lit up when we saw that white van. Before you’d see the van, you’d smell the deliciousness. Before you’d smell the incredible home cooking, you’d hear him shouting your name. He must have some kind of incredible sixth sense for knowing when hikers are coming, because he’d spot you through all the foliage and underbrush as easily as he would across an open meadow. I’m not big on burgers, really never have been. I cooked a LOT of them freshman year of college working for the dining commons grill and came home smelling like them a remarkable number of nights, which is enough to turn you off of a food. The burger this particular night, though, was incredible. We laughed as we saw the enormity of the patty he put together for Toy Story, and then in turn received our own bear-sized burger nearly as big as our head. Watching him make the mac and cheese was something else – I couldn’t believe how much butter went into it! Fresh Ground joked that he was trying to put some meat on Gumby’s wire-thin frame, but he wasn’t off the mark. Thru hikers, even without amazing trail angels cooking for them, routinely eat 4,000-6,000 calories daily. I was in the mid to high end of that range, and STILL came home over 30 pounds lighter than when I had started. Fresh Ground, and his food, are incredible! Remarkably, I was the first one to make it to dinner tonight – the other three members of the “Core Four” were absolute powerhouses on the trail. Poor Toy Story was chafing badly enough to mention it, and asked if I had any Aquaphor. I did not, but I asked Puddles, who did! Team work makes the dream work, and Toy Story was able to get some much needed relief.
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