Date: 2013-04-15
From: Hot Springs

To: Jerry Cabin Shelter
Miles today: 20.5
Weather: overcast clouds

Day Thirty Eight - Hot Springs to Jerry Cabin ShelterWow! What a long day! I woke up at 5am and was on the trail by 6am. Hobo and his wife dropped me off at the trailhead at Tanyard Gap and it was still pitch black. Hiking with a headlamp is cool but my depth perception was a little messed up. I stumbled several times over roots. A turkey gave a warning noise but Melkie barked and the turkey was silent. I really liked hiking as the sun came up and I saw more wildlife and heard more birds this morning than I have so far. We came over a ridge and Melkie started barking, thanks to him I don't have a picture of four deer by a stream. Along the trail this morning were two gravestones, I was surprised at how recent they were (they had died in 1983 and 1990). I made it to Hemlock Hollow Inn by 11am (10.2 miles in before 11am) where Hobo was waiting for me. We had a huge lunch and made a few calls and them we were off. I wanted to try to do twenty miles today and we had to start off with a big up. Our packs felt ridiculously heavy with all of our extra food and I had to stop to catch my breath several times. Hobo found a huge King Snake along the trail and I was surprised that Melkie couldn't be bothered with it. After taking multiple pictures we left the snake on the side of the trail. I was so tired when we came to the first shelter that I almost fell asleep for a few minutes. We powered up on junk food and then took off again for you guessed it more up. Finally we came to what we thought was the last of the up when we arrived at the trail to camp creek lookout tower. We thought we would be heading down for the rest of the miles. We passed the campsite that was a huge tent city and we probably should have stopped there but I hadn't reached my twenty mile goal yet so we continued on. Then it happened. We started climbing up again. It's funny how much of the trail is psychological, it wasn't that steep but when you aren't expecting to go up it is brutal! I was stopping every hundred feet to calm my racing heart down. It was kind of fun though, it was rocky and you had to figure out where to step next. The rocks took us to the top of a ridge line that with the wind was precarious (there was a bad weather trail that we could have taken but that would have been wimpy). We took lots of pictures the views on both sides were awesome and often we were standing on big rocks on top of the very narrow ridge. We were both happy to be going down the other side though but again it seemed to go on forever. Finally the bad weather trail rejoined ours so we knew we only had another mile or so to go. I was totally exhausted but at least the trail was nice for the last mile. We finally made it to the shelter after 8pm (it was full) and searched for a spot to set up camp. We had been racing the rain for the past several hours and I was so glad we had time to set up before it started. We passed the 300 mile mark and I walked 20.5 miles today! My first twenty! Two milestones today!Confessions of a thruhiker:"If you see a shower, take a shower. It doesn't matter I you have already had a shower, it's there to be taken advantage of!"Trouble"Devote today to something so daring even you can't believe you are doing it." Oprah Winfrey