Today’s Miles: 10
Trip Miles: 81.9
“You load 16 tons, what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt…” – Tennessee Ernie Ford
Sunny, with a high near 60. North northwest wind 7 to 10 mph.
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Woke up at 8:30. Cold but sunny. Watch at 50% and Garmin at 33%. Charged them both for 30 minutes while I got moving. Hard to get moving this morning due to the cold. Finally got packed up and headed out at 10:15. Back to normal hiking clothes today… convertible pants and long-sleeve heat gear top. Chilly but I’ll warm up within a mile.
Made the top of Kelly Mountain at 11:00. Tough climb but great view. Making good time. Took the legs off my convertible pants before heading down the mountain. Nice to be in shorts again.
On the way down we ran into Fred from checking in at Amicalola. He was day hiking and playing trail host for the day. Commented that he counted more section hikers than thru-hikers today for the first time this season. Confirms we are at the tail end of the bubble, which is exactly what I wanted.
We stopped at Deep Gap shelter for water and lunch about noon. It is a very nice day going downhill. After that cold front blew the bad weather out, we should have clear and mid-60s the rest of the week. Much more seasonal weather than the near 80 and humid last week.
Got to Dicks Creek Gap at 2:30. We hiked .6 miles down the road to Hostel Around The Bend to pick up my first resupply box. I had planned to stay here, but the zero day at Neel Gap has messed up my schedule. Made a quick 30-minute stop at the hostel. Unpacked the resupply box, loaded my food bag, and tossed out half the lunch food I sent myself. I’m just not doing a full lunch, and the lunch food is heavy. Still more stuff than I needed, but I’ll eat through it. The main thing I did need was my meds. I will have Dana take all the lunches out of future boxes. We left the hostel at 3:15, and the owner drove us back to the trailhead. We were back on trail at 3:35. It was a tough decision not to stay at the hostel for the night, but we need to make miles. We have 4.4 tough miles to go yet today. Hope we are in by 6:30.
My pack is VERY heavy after that resupply.
Got to Plum Orchard Gap shelter at 6:45 and had camp all set by 7:15. I’m getting really good at this! Hung up clothes to dry a bit and put on cold-weather clothes for the night. Supposed to get to 38 again tonight. Phil, our English friend, was here. Good to see him again. Chatted briefly. We are running into him about every other day.
Went down to the shelter and ate at the campfire with the crowd. Ate a cold dinner…trying to eat my heavy lunch food as I have too much of it. Also conserving fuel. I think I only have one or two more boils left and forgot to get more fuel when I resupplied today. Doh!
Nice conversation around the fire. Ran into the youngsters again, plus a few new faces. Everyone headed for bed about 8:30.
Called Dana. Read for a bit. Tried to sleep at 10:15.
Some views of the trail from today, including the famous H tree.
Technical Notes:
- Big Sur bar: 300
- Summer sausage: 450
- Sausages x9: 360
- Hohos: 380
- Pepperoni: 560
- Fritos: 600
- Snickers: 250
- Water: 4 liters
- Miles: 13.44
- Time: 8:46
- Elevation gain: 3330
- Calories consumed: 3400
- Calories burned: 7000
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