Date: 2021-06-13
From: Antlers campsite 

To: Rainbow Springs Campsite 
Miles today: 25.3
Weather: scattered clouds

25.3 miles to Rainbow Spring campsite The birds let me down this morning and I didn¢t wake up until my bird alarm woke me up. I started hiking at 5:30. On the way past the young southbounders I stopped and explained the concept of ¢Hiker Midnight¢. It means that thru hikers need their sleep because they get up early so other hikers need to observe quite time when the sunsets. I tried not to come off as a cranky old man but they probably thought I was. I had one mountain to climb about 15 miles into the day. The name is hard to pronounce and harder to spell so I won¢t try. The trail to the mountain passed some beautiful drainage systems and ponds. Whenever the trail is close to water the trail gets congested with larger rocks and massive root systems. This is annoying because you have to slow down and step very carefully. Occasionally the trail would climb up and over a rocky outcrop and then drop back down to the pond. There were several areas where the trail actually traveled across a beach made up of sand and pebbles. The whitewater rivers were very tempting for me to stop and cool off but I have the Atlantic Ocean at home to play in and I really wanted to go surfing or stand-up paddling, something that uses my arms more than my legs. This pattern repeated itself for 13 miles and then the climb began. It was steep in places but there were also some switchbacks which gave me a rest on the way up. When I climb I try to keep putting one foot in front of the other, no matter how slow I¢m going until I reach the top. I finally made it to the summit around 12:15 and took a nice long break chatting with other hikers before I started the last 10 miles of the day. It¢s funny how quickly I forget how steep the climb was once I get to the top. The trail on the other side had fewer sections of massive roots and I was able to make better time. The trail traveled through several gorges which had cool whitewater rivers rushing through fascinating rock formations. If I wasn¢t in a hurry there were plenty of places for fishing or soaking in a pool of cool water. The temperature was in the low 80s but the humidity seemed a lot lower than it was several days ago. I pulled into camp around 5pm. There was another hiker here with his dog. I recognized his trail name from a YouTube video put out by a guy that started hiking in January. He had issues with a hiker with the same trail name as this guy at the Fontana Dam shelter which is right before you enter the Great Smokie Mountains National park. The guy that I was now talking to freaked out the YouTube guy so much that he feared for his life and left the trail (massive amounts of snow was also a factor). So I sat down and chatted with the guy and got to know his cute dog. He seemed like a nice guy and had been doing some campsite maintenance while he was at the campsite. He even set up some rock cairns to help alert other hikers that they were at the campsite. Sometimes you might miss a trail sign hung on a tree if you¢re busy looking out for trip hazards. He definitely had a unique personality but he wasn¢t an ax murderer. A pair of hikers that I had met on top of the last mountain pulled into the campsite. I was kind of relieved to have company with the questionable hiker around. I asked them about their impressions of the odd hiker and they both had gotten weird vibes from him and they didn¢t even talk with him. Strange dangerous characters hits close to home because in 2019 a hiker that I had dinner with at a shelter just north of Max Patch was murdered on the trail about a month later by a character that was harassing hikers for days. Tomorrow I leave the 100 mile wilderness. I have around 11.5 miles to hike to Abol Bridge where I will get a campsite and food from the general store. The next day I have a 10 mile hike into Baxter State Park where I will get a permit to Katahdin and pay for a space in a campground set aside for northbound thru hikers. Happy Trails, Silver StreakNote: I¢m finishing the last 346 miles that I have left from my 2019 thru hike attempt. The mileage includes a week that I hiked from Springer to the NOC.