Day 7

A lot happened today. 

First things first, we all quit. No just kidding... wouldn't that be an insane way to start this post?!

I woke up at 7:10 or so and started doing a few things on my phone: texting loved ones, checking the map, weather, etc...

A few minutes later, I look back at my phone and realized it was 8 -- I had fallen back asleep! At this point, I think walker had already taken down all his camp gear and packed up, and Spencer wasn't far behind. 

After packing up and eating breakfast, we were on trail by 9. Unlike yesterday, we had a relatively flat trail for the first 2 miles or so. And unlike last time that we were in this area, we didn't have to break trail slightly after muskrat creek. Instead, we got rain today -- which I'll get to in a minute. 

The first big climb today was standing Indian mountain, and we flew up it. I'm unfortunately to lazy to check precisely what it is right now, but I think it was a 1200 foot ascension is roughly 2.5 miles. And really gradual at that. We didn't get any views due to the fog, but going a little under 6 miles in 2 hours this morning felt good. 

It was while we were near the top of standing Indian that it started to rain and the wind pick up. Not much happened during the middle of the day, besides chatting with Walker and Spencer as we hiked along. 

Around 2:30 however, that changed. For most of the morning and early afternoon, the rain and wind were minimal -- you could wear a rain jacket, but you didn't need one. 

After filling up water near Carter gap shelter, the sky opened up. I only had my rain jacket on at this point so I put my rain pants on and accepted what was going to happen. For the next 30 minutes, it absolutely came down in buckets. And with the wind, the buckets were coming down sideways. And we even got sleet! 

This was really how the afternoon went. We put one foot in front of the other, and kept trudging along. Feeling my socks and shoes next to me currently, they're frozen stiff, so that should be fun to deal with in the morning. Nothing new there though. 

One big crowning achievement however, is that we hit the 100 mile mark today. At roughly 415, we summited mount Albert and hit 100 miles, only 2100 left to go! 

One quick note about Mt Albert, that final push on the climb up is vile. 400 feet of elevation gain in .2 miles is quite uphill. And doing that at the 19 mile mark for the day was a riot. Spencer smoked walker and I up it that's for sure -- he was cruising at the end of the day. 

Surprisingly, we stayed at Long branch shelter tonight. With the high winds and wet temps, we didn't feel like setting up our tents tonight, so the shelter it is. It did also rain for 6 hours, so we weren't to upset with being dry inside.

Daily recap time:

- hiked 20.4 miles

- from mile marker 82 to 102.4

- from white oak gap to long branch shelter

- high temp was 55 and rain

- low temp (morning) 55

- low temp (tonight) 15 to 20

- ascent: 3,915 feet

- descent: 3,990 feet. 

I might add more to this post tomorrow, or maybe I'll just save my thoughts for then. Either way, I'm exhausted. 

Thanks for following along, 

Tyler M.