Day 31

Without a doubt, it was the right call going to the shelter last night.

Thr rain came down all night. Waking up inside a dry shelter, being able to move around without getting wet, and being able to slightly enjoy the morning was quite nice. 

Plus, although not major, a wet tent does add a pound or so to the total pack weight -- something that I'd rather avoid. On that note while I'm thinking about it, I weighed my pack the other day and without water or food, my base weight is 13 pounds. So, on some of these days when I'm headed into town and only have a quarter liter of water and a single meal, my pack doesn't weigh more than 15 pounds -- which is just great! 

As expected, the most common injury out here is just overused muscles. Even though having adequate gear is important, my philosophy is to be as ultralight as I'm comfortable with and reduce the total weight that I have to carry. It might not seem like alot, but carrying 10 less pounds every day compared to someone else, really makes a drastic difference walking from Georgia to Maine. 

Anyways, back to the day -- it felt like we were back in the southern nanthahalla section -- which isn't really a good thing. It rained / drizzled for most of the day, there was immense fog and the wind certainly was ever present. 

Our goal for the day was to climb up and over unaka mountain by the mid afternoon, and then go another 10 miles or so to camp. Getting up Unaka was 9.6 miles and 3500 feet of elevation gain. Thankfully, we were able to knock this out fairly quickly. Having started hiking around 8:45, we were up and over Unaka by 1. From there, we had 10.4 miles to camp, and rolled in here by 4:45. 

Honestly, I'm pretty happy with our pace. Assuming we took about an hour worth of breaks, we hiked for 7 hours and went 20 miles -- so almost a 3 mile an hour pace. Once we get our trail legs back under us and the trail flattens out in Virginia, I really don't see us doing less than 20, if anything, probably something closer to the 25 range -- for the most part that is.

Apart from the long climb up Unaka, there really wasn't much to report for the day. Just one of those completely fogged over, rain jacket on, and walk straight kind of days. 

I will say, I was pretty tired getting into camp today. My feet and hips were super sore but I'm thinking this is just me getting used to hiking again instead of laying down all day and occasionally visiting the bathroom. 

Tomorrow should be our last hard day in some sense. It'll be in the high teens in the morning, which means frozen socks and shoes, and we'll also go another 20 miles, getting over roan high knob in the process. 

For those who are curious, we'll be in the roan highlands tomorrow. So, if you want to see some beautiful pictures, Google the roan highlands and see what we'll be walking through. 

Daily recap: 
- Total miles hiked: 20
- From mile marker: 348.8 to 368.8
- From maple gap shelter to greasy creek gap
- High temp: 40 and rainy
- Low temp (morning): 40 and cloudy
- low temp (tonight): 15 to 20 and clear
- Total ascent: 5,361 feet
- Total descent: 4,390 feet

Thanks for following along. 
Tyler M.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 0

Good evening. We are now officially back on trail. And as for Spencer, he's on trail for the first time. It's good to be back! Our time line for the day was as follows: Woke up at 5:15  Started driving at 6:05 Left Kristina at 6:35 Met Walker and Spencer at 6:36 Learned that Walker left his phone with Ashley at 6:37 Ashley came back at 6:48 Checked a bag and got through security by 7:10 Finished breakfast by 7:45 Boarded at 8:00 Got on the runway at 8:10 Took off at 8:22 Landed at 10:33 Got picked up at 11:10 Got dropped off at amicalola at 12:50 Started hiking at 1:15 Finished hiking by 4:30 Had camp set up by 4:45 Finished the blog by: right now Before I start talking about the trail, the whole concept that we as humans just fly around in metal boxes and view it as completely normal is mind boggling. I know it's just physics and engineering but still, that fact that I was going 550 mph at 30k elevation is crazy.  Okay -- trail time. Walker and I both looked at each other
Read more

My Thoughts 1 Week Out

Hello again, Walker and I are going back on trail, and this time, Spencer is joining us too.  Truth be told, I've been in the process of writing this post for more than a year and I'm still not sure how I want to introduce my mindset going into this hike.  I'd say there are three emotions that have been top of mind for the last couple years: excitement, curiosity, and frustration.  Starting with the obvious, I'm overjoyed that I'm in good enough physical and mental health to do a thru hike. You never quite know what can change over the course of 4 years, and in reality, something unforeseen could happen any second. As I've mentioned time and time again (for those who know me well), being outdoors leaves me with an aura of wonder and superiority. Not that I am better than those that don't hike the AT, but that I am fundamentally doing something more valuable than I have been. And it's not exactly clear to me why that is. To a degree, even though this hike
Read more

Test Post

Testing for visibility. For anyone who sees this and plans to comment throughout the hike, please leave a comment below or make a profile so you can interact with the blog for the next 4 months. Posts of the hike will begin on the 20th or 21st of February since we officially begin on the 21st. Just to note, you don't need an account to view the blog, but if you want to comment at any point you'd need one I believe. Looking forward to sharing this journey with everyone.  Thanks,  Tyler.
Read more