Date: 2019-04-27
From: Hot Springs

To: Hot Springs (For Real)
Miles today: 19.8
Weather: light rain

Alarms started going off pretty early! That hiker timing! I tried my best to sleep through them because I stayed up pretty late and I was tired. I woke up at 8. I felt tired, as I do every day on trail or off, but I got moving. I asked Tigger if I could put my stuff in the room I was moving into and I did that. I used my big pack, but put the Gatorade in one pocket and my Smart Water bottle in the other, with the sawyer filter on top of the bottle. This would allow me to get water quickly and just drink it from the filter. I put some crackers and simple chocolate chip granola bars in the main body of the pack, along with sunscreen, my wallet, and TP. I didn¢t have much for breakfast. Hot Sauce made eggs and toast and I had a piece of her toast, which was probably a good idea because it wouldn¢t mess with my tummy too much. My pack felt so nice and light. Ahh there¢s nothing like slackpacking and dropping 30 pounds of weight for a day. It¢s awesome. We drove up to Max Patch and he was a much faster driver, thank goodness. It was a nice drive, now that my head was up and I was mostly human again, looking out the window. We passed a lot of abandoned cabins and talked about what it would take to fix one up and have a beautiful cabin in the woods. We talked about his hiking experience too. He thru-hiked the AT and the PCT, but didn¢t finish the CDT. Almost a triple crowner. Someday he says! There¢s no way I¢d ever do all three. I¢ve never wanted to do the other two, always just the AT. I don¢t know if I mentioned this, but someone did all three in a year. Yeah no. We got up to Max Patch again and parked. Tbt haha it brought back all the memories of walking down in zombie mode to the shuttle. We had to walk back up to connect with the AT. I really did not want to summit again because it just was too soon. I was just done with Max Patch. I wanted to move on from it and officially get to Hot Springs. I went into that town twice by car and still hadn¢t walked into it. I will definitely come back to Max Patch someday. It was beautiful. All of the ¢bald¢ mountains are really beautiful actually. They have grass at the top like a field and no tree cover, so it feels like standing on top of the world. The hills are alive! I was not singing the sound of music today though. I bid farewell to my new friend and walked down the AT. The first 6 miles really were easy. The terrain was flat or downhill the whole time. I raced through it and it felt so good. I passed a bunch of day hikers. It was a beautiful day so it makes sense that they were out hiking. One commented on my pack size and thought I was hiking the whole AT with that. I laughed and joked with her, crying inside that my pack is so much heavier normally. Little does she know how annoying it is. I got to Lemon Gap, where Wobbles got off. And of course, with every Gap, there¢s a freaking climb right after it, so I stopped for a snack. I had a granola bar and some water, and started the climb up. It wasn¢t too bad. It was a hot day and I am not a fan of uphills, but it was okay. I met a man on the way up and was deeply saddened by his story. He¢s ¢Luke Walker¢ because he¢s terminally ill with Leukemia. His goal is to hike as many months as his body will allow him. It was so sad. People like him inspire me every day. I can¢t imagine doing this if I were terminally ill with Leukemia. Such strength and courage. He has a blog if anyone wants to follow his journey: mountainsthatremain.com. I made it up the first mountain, ending in a nice grassy field on top. I then came across a shelter. I was tempted to stop and take a breather, but I felt okay and kept going. It went downhill for a little bit and then climbed again. This climb was much worse. It was just long. I met a man halfway up who was also headed to Hot Springs today, but with a full pack. He was eating a poptart on a rock. I got to the top and there was no view. Love that lol. I think this was Bluff Mountain. There was a big rock at the top so I sat on it and ate another snack. I was very good about hydrating with both the Gatorade and the water. It¢s so much easier with a light pack that I can just swing to the side. I filled up my water a few times as well. After Bluff Mountain it was pretty much downhill the whole way. I was starting to get tired. But I was also running on adrenaline because I was finally going to make it to Hot Springs. For real! I passed 25-mile. Haven¢t seen her in a while. I just found out her name is because she wants to do 25-mile days, but she hasn¢t actually done any yet. I took a picture for her of a pretty view and stopped for a bit. She was also headed to Hot Springs. I went ahead and passed a couple sitting under some big rocks. I passed a few groups of day hikers, but it was mostly quiet for the whole way down. There was one more Gap with cars parked and it said I had 6 or so miles left. Of course there was some climbing after that, but it was a long stretch of downhill. The pounding on my legs and feet was starting to get to me. I could see Hot Springs for a long time and it was just switchback after switchback leading down into the town. I was trying to picture the spots Hot Sauce and Prometheus has talked to me about like abandoned roads or stealth camps they had thought about. I passed the last shelter before Hot Springs and climbed a few more times. There was a gravesite near the shelter. I¢m always so interested and saddened when I see memorials or graves on the trail. Some are for trail founders, others for people that died in plane accidents in the mountains, others for people who loved hiking here, others with no explanation. I finally started to make the final descent and boom, I was here!! AHH. The trail passes right by my hostel actually, which I didn¢t realize before. I had to officially walk down into town on the trail though to make it all real. So I walked past my hostel and down to the main road. I asked someone to take my picture and hobbled around, almost 20 miles done for the day, noro still working it¢s way out of me, and Hot Springs finally under my belt. I took a video to celebrate my arrival and it turned out to be in slow motion. How fitting of my experience getting to Hot Springs haha. I walked to the Dollar General to get WiFi so I could tell the world that I made it!! For real!! I ran into Nemo! I think I¢ve mentioned him, but I can¢t remember. He¢s very entertaining and ridiculously fast. His pack is 9 pounds, base weight. I don¢t even know. Okay dude, you do you! He¢s already thru-hiked once and just keeps coming back, seeing where the trail takes him. He¢s actually from Fairfield County, which is the funny part. We made this connection. He hates it though and totally rejects the culture there. Understandable. It had its ups, but the competitive and judgmental environment of the area we grew up in was tough for me. Anyway, I had met him before, but it was nice seeing him again here. As we were talking, a big school bus showed up and honked. A bearded guy waved and the bus said hikeryearbook.com. This guy, Otie I believe, makes a yearbook every year with a picture of you (looking good like a normal human) and a picture of you finishing the trail. You send in your photos and then can order the yearbook. I will have to do that! I didn¢t know how this whole bearded-dude-in-a-school-bus thing worked, so I asked where he was going and if it was free (lol me and my money woes). He said he was going up to the hostel and that yes it was free. I was pumped! I did not want to walk anymore at all and I had officially made it through town, so I got on. The bus had long benches with cushions and sheets over them. It was actually pretty cool. We arrived! There was a chili cookout at my hostel, which I did not even know about. I was not feeling up for chili today especially, but I also just hate chili. I¢m sorry I really do. It¢s like a brown pile of mush and chunks. I hate chunks. I¢m this way about most sauces and salsas actually. I usually just dip in salsa, but don¢t scoop. And I prefer sauces that are pur©ed. I¢ve gotten better about it. I make lasagna sometimes and I like making my own sauce from scratch, with chunks of meat and tomato and carrots. I¢ve come a long way. I used to not eat pasta sauce at all; it was always pasta butter! But yeah, no chili. I don¢t do chunks, beans, or brown mush. To each their own. They did have mac and cheese, but I¢m picky about that too! There are some mac and cheeses that are just bad. It has to be the right cheeses and there has to be a crispy layer of broiled cheese and bread crumbs on top. It was probably too soon for that much dairy anyway, but I was starved. I put some in a bowl and went right for a coke, yay sugar! My stomach was not happy. After my first bite of mac and cheese I could feel my tummy lurching. I threw the rest out. I was truly hobbling everywhere. People were noticing and saying ¢you¢ve got the hiker hobble going!¢ I sure did. It was like walking on knives. My feet were screaming. Pack or no pack, this was my longest mileage day so far! I headed inside, went to my private room, lay down on my bed, put my feet up on the folded comforter that was on the end of the bed, and processed the day. The hostel didn¢t have great WiFi and I already had no service, so it took 20 minutes, but I posted an Instagram to share with the world how good I was feeling for making it to Hot Springs. Prometheus and Hot Sauce had left this morning after helping me get ready to go. Prometheus had also helped set up the tents for trailfest downtown. He¢s always so helpful! I didn¢t experience much of trailfest, unfortunately. I was sick or hiking, but I heard they had some nice bands and I did experience the chili dinner. There was music at the hostel all night actually, but I listened from inside. I was so pumped to make my pasta. I made spaghetti with sauce and that powdered fake Parmesan cheese. Boy was that a throwback to childhood. Wish I had fresh cheese, but Dollar General doesn¢t exactly sell that. I couldn¢t finish my pasta, so I left the rest in the pot with a note saying ¢up for grabs¢. I knew people were probably full of chili, but I figured I¢d leave it as an option. A lot of people were walking in and out anyway because they were up here to see the band, so they did stop and have some. I finally took a shower, did my dishes and went to bed. I was so tired. I stayed up til 10 or so and passed out. So glad I made it for real today and can finally leave Hot Springs. But I also pushed myself hard today while still recovering so I¢m quite tired too. Onwards and upwards!Little Debbie