Date: 2017-09-17
From: Glasgow

To: Harrison Ground spring
Miles today: 11.4

The sobo bubble reluctantly left Glasgow around lunchtime, but only after running out of excuses to depart.First of all, it took a while before everyone finally emerged from either the shelter or their tents. And then Simpleton Extraordinaire made a sumptuous cooked breakfast for everyone. And then we resupplied at the small but hiker-friendly grocery store in town and finally of course we needed to have the official Sobo Bubble photo at the dinosaur statue.Part of our reluctance to depart might not have been to do with Glasgow, although the town's dinosaur had an undeniable draw. Another factor might have been the solid 2,500ft climb we faced to regain the ridgetop.We paid to be shuttled back to the trail, gratefully avoiding the hassle of the one-mile walk to the junction with the road from which we'd have to hitch back to where we'd been picked up last night. We then crossed the James River via an old railway bridge that was reputed to be the AT's longest footbridge and then had a mile along the riverbank before finally following a stream up to a shelter, from which the climbing began. I was going to leave Grayson's rock here and had prepared a note explaining its significance and including Grayson's phone number so future carriers could carry the rock forward and update Grayson's family on its progress. But as I was doing this, Simpleton said he'd take it the next leg and put it into Jamieson's pack. The rock heads south!The only down side of our late departure was that we started our ascent in the heat of the day and it took a while to gain enough height for the heat to moderate. I was glad to be doing this in mid-September rather than in the middle of summer.Thankfully the climb was in four separate stages, with time to recover in between as it traversed around the side of hills in between going straight up them. The climb was not too much short of what we'd done on the Priest but this was definitely easier, thanks to being broken into sections. The trail quality was good too, which made it easier to maintain a rhythm and thus easier to hike.I went into slow-and-steady mode and rocked up to camp after everyone else. Once again, we were grateful the pooling spring was flowing because this was the last water for about 14 miles. A potential spring noted by Guthook about two thirds of a mile earlier had been flowing so slowly as to be only worthwhile in desperate circumstances.Soon we were sitting around a fire, cooking dinner and continuing the discursive conversations that had made our stay in Glasgow so enjoyable. And tomorrow we only have a few hundred more metres of ascent to get to the top of the ridge, which ought to make tomorrow easier.Life is good.AT fact of the day: Early on in the ascent of the hills today we passed the point where a LASHer*, Mountain Man, fell from the trail and died a few days earlier. We're not entirely sure where he fell but there was a point where the trail had a steep dropoff, but it's hard to say exactly what happened and whether it was a fall or maybe a heart attack or something like that. But it's a reminder to us all to value the time we have.* Long-Ass Section Hiker.