Date: 2017-05-16
From: Laurel Creek

To: Jenny Knob Shelter
Miles today: 18.8
Weather: clear sky

I took it easy getting up this morning (lesson learned from all the missed trail magic), listening to some music for a little while before finally working up the energy to move. I still hit the trail by 8 and the hiking was easy. We had a moderate uphill followed by a long flat/downhill section this morning, but the sun hadn't yet touched the trail as I hiked which kept the temperatures pleasantly cool.I passed Hinds, Vince, and Nobody and took over cobweb duty for the rest of the morning. I reached a gravel road and followed it down the hill past some heavy machinery installing a new set of high voltage power lines. Coming down to a road, I ran into some TRAIL MAGIC. Someone had left a grocery bag on a sign from which i grabbed a banana and cereal packet. Then, I got some TRAIL MAGIC from a white sedan than pulled up just as I reached the road. An older gentleman got out, handed me 2 bags with 4 candy bars each (Butterfingers, almond joy, Snickers) and a clementine each and then pulled away. My parents warned me about strangers handing out candy from a white van, but they didn't say anything about white sedans! I'm not sure why they stopped, but I think I was the only hiker to get that magic, which is pretty cool.I walked a bit farther and sat on a shady ledge overlooking I-77 below and ate some of my newly acquired food while I waited for the others. I noticed a couple people come out of the woods but not continue hiking past me, which was suspicious. I headed back to check it out and found TRAIL MAGIC from a 4time AT thru hiker from Alabama who is up here for trail days and doing some trail magic until it starts. I got a banana from him and also noticed the store that I had walked past. It wasn't fully open yet, the owner only had permission to sell prepackaged goods until the permits were worked out, but I enjoyed 2 drumsticks (ice cream) from the store (I had to get 2 otherwise I would've gotten change back, and change is heavy...) which were appreciated as the temperature continued to climb towards the 80s.While we were enjoying our treats one of the helicopters we had heard throughout the morning topped the hill we had just come down and hovered there. A could seconds later a heavy lift helicopter dangling a sling joined the smaller spotter copter and began to hover. As we watched the helicopter lumbered back into the sky trailing half of a high voltage transmission line underneath it. It made this run twice while we stood and watched before moving on.We crossed I-77 on an overpass and did the truck dance and had a couple of drivers give us a honk in return. The trail continued rien the road a bit farther before ducking back into the woods but not before passing a trash can with a sign requesting that no deer carcasses be placed in it (how many times did that take have to happen before a sign had to be put up?). We headed uphill, a sweaty ordeal even with the trees providing protection from the sun, and as we rounded a small ridge the sounds of the highway abruptly disappeared returning us to nature.We headed 0.3 off trail to a shelter and had some lunch. We had tanked up at the store because in addition to the 0.3 we had already walked, the water for the shelter was another 0.3 onwards, making it a 1.2mi round trip to get water here, the last reliable water for the next 10mi.Lookout remained at the shelter a bit longer to finish his siesta, so Classy and I headed out, doing a hiking sing-along to a Spotify Disney playlist. We've done it before but hiking, singing, and breathing (a requirement for the two former) are impossible to do simultaneously if the hiking involves any sort of uphill. 6mi into the dry stretch we were both running low on water (I'll need to start filling both bottles on days like these) in the blazing hot afternoon when we came to a gap and hit some TRAIL MAGIC. RonJon, a thru hiker last year, was parked in the gap, camping in the back of his truck for the week (waiting for trail days) handing out water and snacks to this year's hikers. The water was greatly appreciated and made the next couple miles a lot more pleasant.Throughout the day we stepped over 3 sets of bear scat on the trail but didn't run into any. 2mi before camp we hit another milestone... 600mi! There was no sign or anything this time (or we missed it), but still pretty satisfying. At camp I soaked my feet downstream of the water source and most of us took bandana showers in the stream to take a bit of the sweat off. We all cooked dinner and halfway through cooking my pasta dish I ran out of fuel. This can lasted me from Hot Springs to here, more than 300mi, which is pretty good. I borrowed some fuel from Classy (and her massive fuel can)) to finish my meal and enjoyed my Dirty Rice in tortilla.Tomorrow is my last day hiking in these shoes, which is probably good. It doesn't look like it would take too much to rip the toes off of them at this point. Also, we're going to do some night hiking tomorrow morning while we still have a bit of moon left and to avoid some of the heat of the day. Should be fun!