Date: 2017-11-10
From: Lance Creek campground

To: Hickory Flats cemetery
Miles today: 17.5
Weather: clear sky

Nobos are often the subject of scorn from us sobos. At first this is a derision born of envy because while we're still getting our trail legs in the wilds of Maine, they're cruising past and doing unimaginable daily mileages. There's a kind of equilibrium from the Bigelows through to Moosilauke at the southern end of the Whites, but from then on, nobos are subject to unbridled -- albeit often tongue-in-cheek and hopefully good-humoured -- mockery, and particularly whenever they have the temerity to bleat about trail difficulty.But today, I will not stand to have a single word said against nobos! They are our trail siblings and we love them unconditionally!This may or may not be because a bunch of nobos have travelled back to the trail from across the country specifically to pay forward the trail magic given to them by doing some for us, the Great Sobo Bubble of 2017. This is the upside of the way the Great Hiker Trash Trail Wedding tomorrow has bunched the various sobo groups together. The Second Breakfast Club came through here yesterday and our group of eight had originally planned to stop tonight at the shelter before Hickory Flats cemetery -- site of the trail magic -- because it would put us within a few hours of reaching Springer tomorrow.We're glad we made it to here because Water Boy, Chilli Dog and a bunch of others have really put on something special, laying on hot food, beer and a huge fire at a church picnic site just off the trail at Hickory Flats. They seem like cool people, although none of us could remember crossing paths with them back in New England.This wasn't even the only trail magic today. Because we're a couple of days away from finishing, family members who are coming to see their loved ones finish the trail have arrived a couple of days early and are doing what they can to help us.Nine's father has driven up from Florida and has booked a room at the Amicalola Falls Lodge for all of us for the night after we finish. Today he met us at Woody Gap, providing the chance to dump some stuff we won't need again in the next 24 hours.That's all we have left -- 24 hours. None of the stuff we dumped involved clothing because the corollary of the clear blue skies that greeted us this morning is that we also had cold-ass temperatures.It seems now that we're finally left behind the vacillating between mild and cold the weather has done in the last few weeks. Now it's just cold all the time.But the clear weather also meant there were views, which were also further improved because of the increasingly bare trees as autumn continues. I hiked mostly on my own this afternoon and rocked up to Hickory Flats to find most of the others already there, along with our kind hosts. Eventually the extended version of Team KRT -- me, Sriracha, Sweetblood, Dirt, 2am, OK, Happy Feet, Packaged Meat and Nine -- were united, along with Counsellor, another sobo we'd camped with last night.I was very happy on this cold-ass day to see a roaring fire going, courtesy of Water Boy, Chilli Dog and their friends. They'd been following the progress of the sobo bubble and picked these few days as the best time to do trail magic, which was spot on. They must have helped 30 sobos over these days. The final night on trail is definitely different from any other. I remember it having a very valedictorian tone on the PCT, in part because for most of my then tramily, we were about to complete something that we'd originally considering simply inconceivable: a 2650-mile hike through some of the most beautiful country the US has to offer. Only Andy, who'd thru-hiked the AT but still hadn't managed to get a trail name on either trail, knew he could do this.On the CDT, for reasons unknown it was the second last night that felt like the celebration. The final night was just five trail miles from the Mexican border, which we could see from our campsite under the stars.Tonight here at Hickory Flats was different again, in part because we're with others rather camping as a tight tramily in the wilderness. Tomorrow we'll be done.Life is good.AT fact of the day: Last trail magic, last night on trail, last rainfall... We've now done 360/361ths of the trail, or 99.726%... I can finally safely say I won't night hike again because this is our last night. Our last night...