All in a good days walk - Part 3
The following has been transcribed directly from the journal that I kept while hiking the Appalachian Trail (AT).
Wednesday, April 26, 2000
Woke up at 7:41 am. Couldn’t tell, but it is clear and sunny. Breakfast is 2 Cream of Wheat packets and some dried apricots.
The man and his daughter and someone we haven’t seen before have already passed us. It’s 8:53 am and we are finally breaking the tents down for movement. Sleep was ok-don’t think it got any cooler than it is now. Kept waking up every few hours. Definite pain in my right hip-might be tough to walk? Shoulders are really sore also. Looking to hit Gooch Gap today-it is about 12 miles away.
10:08am. 45 degrees. Arrived at Long Creek Falls-going off the trail .1 miles to take pictures. Everybody is talking about their shoulders hurting-yes Sir! It hurts badly. The hip is feeling great-no pain anywhere but my shoulders and they hurt pretty bad.
The falls drop about 60 feet and have two tiers. Mike got too close and almost slid right into the pool.
11:50 am. 49 degrees. Taking a break after the long climb up some steps climbing the Mountain. Pretty tough. Now we are headed down to Hightower Gap then up the HUGE Sassafras Mountain. Looks pretty level and down to the gap.
My Achilles tendon on my left heel and my shoulders hurt badly..whoooohoooo!
After climbing some nasty tall, steep trails, we had lunch. Stopped at 1pm just above (before) Horse Gap. Rough going today. From where we are we can see Camp Merrill, which is the mountain phase of Ranger School. We are all tempted to stop in the Ranger Camp for a shower and food. From here we can also see Blackhawks flying out of the Camp. It is 56 degrees. First crap for Skye and I. We moved off the trail and did our business.
Stayed at lunch for an hour and soaked up the sun. Hurting badly. Hills are steep so we break (or at least I break) often on the ascents-on the other hand, I speed race down the steep descents.
Back down the hills working on Sassafras Mountain, which hurt too. Down Sassafras to Coopers Gap where we stop to figure out what to do about going into the Ranger Camp. It’s 3 miles downhill on a gravel road. No one can totally decide so we resort to a coin toss. Heads for the Camp and tails to continue on. Best 2 out of 3. Both tails-destiny calls. March on.
Next up-Justus Mountain and Phyllis Spur.
Justus is bad cause it goes up steep and levels out-BAM-then back up and through some bramble thickets-lots of trees that seem to have blocked the trail when they fell. Steep downhill to Phyllis Spur. 4 hikers camped out on their backs. Guess this may be a good place to stop. We fill lots of water-actually clogged the filter cause I had it in the sand. Cleaned it (porcelain filter) and it worked again.
Dinner is Velveeta Mac-n-cheese. Good! Used 8 oz. of water. Also mixed up a packet of Oral Rehydration Salts.
*Lunch was Salami and crackers again.
Total today: 9.6 miles
Overall Total: 21.2 miles
