Date: 2022-07-31
From: Flume Gorge Visitor Center Mile 1821.3

To: Garfield Ridge Campsite Mile 1831.4
Miles today: 10.1
Weather: clear sky

Woke up and made some blueberry pancakes and ham steaks for breakfast. Unfortunately, Orchid brought the ham steaks up to the kitchen and so I completely forgot about the cheese in the downstairs fridge and didn¢t bring it for this section. Got a pretty big breakfast so that¢s good news and a continued improvement. The hostel has a regularly scheduled drop off at the Flume Gorge Visitor¢s Center parking lot, and we caught the shuttle over to the missing 28 mile section along with RnR. The parking lot is about 9/10 of a mile from the AT, and it¢s a steady uphill along a paved bike path to get back to the AT.Immediately after getting back on the AT, there was a long climb up Mount Liberty. This was a steep climb, 2800 ft over just about 3 miles, and I struggled quite a bit going up the hill. I had to stop several times and was struggling to make 1mph pace. Orchid was ahead of me and Pilgrim was behind me. There was water about 7/8 of the way up at the Liberty Springs Campsite from an ice cold spring. I had started with just enough water to get here, and I stopped to fill up all my water bottles including an extra one since there is limited water during the day. This meant that I was carrying almost 7 pounds of water leaving the spring. At the top of the climb, I took the blue blaze trail up to the actual peak of Mount Liberty. Had some excellent views at the peak. It looks like Orchid and I passed on the trail to Mount Liberty but never saw each other.Following that there was a relatively flat section hiking over towards Franconia Ridge and I stopped for lunch in that section. Pilgrim passed me while I was eating lunch and then I caught him as we got to the ridge. Franconia Ridge goes over Little Haystack, Mount Lincoln, and Mount Lafayette. It¢s an absolutely spectacular trail along the ridge between these mountains. It looks like it¢s some thing out of The hobbit movie or similar settlng. It¢s really hard to describe how beautiful it was up there and the views that we had of the surrounding area. Pilgrim and I hiked together for a while along the ridge, stopping a bunch to take pictures and admire the view. He stopped to eat lunch on Mount Lincoln and I headed up to the top of Mount Lafayette. So far I think Franconia Ridge has been my favorite short section of trail. It helps that the weather has been clear every day in the whites.The descent from Mount Lafayette was steep, with some bigger drops, and I hiked a bunch of it with Polaris. There was one last hurrah, another climb up to the top of Mount Garfield. I took the blue blaze trail to climb to the peak of the mountain where there used to be a fire tower. The views continue to be spectacular and it just doesn¢t get old. Two hikers were staying up there but they had to carry up 3 liters of water. There was a gray bird flying around that would actually land in your hand. It landed on one of the other hikers although it didn¢t land in mine.Pretty steep descent from Garfield Mountain down to the shelter turn off where was the water source. I filled up all the water bottles and the bladder at the shelter was fairly far down the trail. Stayed in the upper part of the shelter last night, which was just long enough for my sleeping pad and pillow. Hopefully I won¢t fall out while climbing out in the middle of the night. I don¢t understand why they don¢t make the upper part of the Shelter just a little bit longer so you can squeeze past to get to the latter. Weebles, Cholula, and Chum were there and it was great to catch up with them since we saw them last in NY. Turns out they know Polaris as well. We also ran into Sasquath, Timber and Rocket who we last saw at the Tumbling Run Shelter at the end of their first week before they got trail names. It¢s only because we¢re filling in this section that we got to see them since we¢re effectively 4 days ahead of them. Steps 27500Weather Forecast: 84/59 and sunny