- Miles 395.3-410.2 (14.9 mi.)
- Total ascent: 4705′; descent 4081′
What a different post I’d be writing right now had Rachel and I hiked just a bit slower, or stopped for a break just a bit sooner. How glad I am to be writing this, now a few days later, in a cabin while under a wind advisory.
Before I get to the day’s best-yet breakfast or other, less pants-soiling events, I want to remind everyone why it’s a bad idea to linger or camp near dead trees.
Around 2 p.m., Rachel had stopped to look at Guthook, our maps app. I was sucking at my bladder hose, lost in some corner of my mind.
Above me, the forest creaked, as it is often does in the wind. But this time, the creak became a cra-ack-ack, and Rachel, who stood ahead of me, looked up. I looked up, too, just as a pine tree’s top began to tumble.
Without any attempt to look ahead, I ran. I put one foot in front of the other with the same thoughtless impulse that pulls one’s hand from a hot stove. Only after the wood thumped the earth and splinters flew did my conscious brain wrest back the controls.
Although I probably wouldn’t have been hit directly regardless, it was still too close for comfort. To nurse my psyche, I munched a Clif bar and drank some water.
Other than that near-disaster, however, the day couldn’t have been sweeter. Rachel and I ate a one-of-a-kind breakfast at Mountain Harbor: french toast fried with honey and pecans; breakfast tacos with eggs, bacon, and cheese; spinach quiche and tomato pie; truffle potatoes with onions and peppers; biscuits and gravy; muffins of many different flavors and textures.
I wish I could say Rachel and I had a deep or engaging conversation over breakfast, but we didn’t. We ate until we were full and then some, and then watched the weather from the couch we were sitting on, trying to digest what we’d eaten before getting up to hike.
From when we left the hostel at 9:30 until noon, we encountered only two other people. For the rest of the day, and particularly just after lunch, however, we met a new hiker around every corner.
We ate our peanut butter wraps at Jones Falls, the most impressive of the falls we’d see that day, though we didn’t know it because it was also the first. We got a few snaps of the piney, black-bouldered falls, safely behind a sign that reminded us of the dangers of climbing on waterfalls (whose posting must have been preceded by some incredible horror, if it convinced the NPS to commission a sign).
We saved part of our tortilla and peanut butter, having eaten an embarrassing amount at breakfast, and walked on. We crossed the 400-mile mark shortly later, celebrating with a photo and another bite.
In another mile or so, we stumbled on Zen, whose shock cord-topped pack I’d admired earlier. Zen called my name and strode to where his campsite met the trail to hand me some spare cord. Rachel, praise be to her (and damnation to my struggles with all things fabric), looped it around the brain of my pack to create a storage net.
For most of the rest of the afternoon, we churned. The trail was steep, in terms of total gain and loss, though relatively smooth in its rate of change and soft under our feet. We crossed water at more than a dozen points, most of which had bridges and none of which were washed out.
Today was also wonderful because of our light packs. With two days’ worth of food and a liter of water, we weighed our packs at 33 pounds. We plan to resupply in shorter cycles than we have been, where allowed by the distance between points of sale.
Tonight, we’re staying 18 miles from our resupply and about 60 from the Virginia border. Many consider Virginia boring, due to its fields and lowlands, but we don’t mind flatter country. We look forward to the warmer temperatures and more predictable weather.
As of now, it’s in the high 20s, we’re bundled up in our bags, and our bellies are full of a Spam-cheese-chive-grits calorie soup. Considering what could have been, it’s an ending to the day I’m satisfied with.
