Date: 2021-06-04
From: Birch Run Shelter

To: James Fry Shelter
Miles today: 17.1
Weather: moderate rain

So today was a long day. I¢ve been saying that I¢m taking some easy days to let my feet heal fully and get my trail legs under me, and then slowly increase miles once I¢m ready. I had planned to go to the next shelter today, Tom¢s Run, which was 6.2 miles from the previous shelter. From the forecast the previous morning (since I couldn¢t get the updated one without service), it was supposed to rain on and off all day. I wasn¢t really planning on getting up super early, but all the other hikers got up early and I woke up to them, so I figured I might as well get on the road. I got going by 8:45, with, you guessed it, an uphill. At the top of the uphill, someone had a tent of trail magic set up. They invited me to stop for a snack and I got to have some watermelon and a cold soda, so thank you mama pasta! It turned out that it was one of the hikers moms that had set up everything for the day. The hikers I met today were all really cool and funny. They were a big group, probably around 10 people, so they call themselves the horde. I can¢t remember all of their names, but there was Mountain Goat, Squid, Dirty Pasta (her mom set up the trail magic for the day), and a bunch of others, but I¢m bad with names. A few more hikers joined within the next few minutes, Cheese and Bilbo. There was also another hiker coming southbound, who said there was also no service at the next shelter. Now I¢m in a pickle. I know my parents will want me to check in, I have to get in touch with the Maryland home base because I¢m planning to meet with one of them Monday to get my prescription, and most importantly, I¢m waiting to hear back from my doctor about if she changed the prescription yet or if I¢m using the old one. There¢s a state park another 3-4 miles past the next shelter, and I figured they would probably have reception. But that was much further than I planned. But I checked my watch and it was still early, so I figured I might as well try. I passed the official halfway point for the trail this year, and the marking for 1100 miles. I kept a fast pace going and got to the first shelter before noon, so I was averaging close to 2mph. With it still being so early, I decided I might as well go for it, though I was able to get enough signal to send check-ins to different people, and see that my doc hadn¢t responded yet. Nevertheless, I continued on to the park. This park has the AT museum as well as the general store that hosts the half gallon challenge. I got to the park around 2 I think, and ended up ordering some fries and a quesadilla there. The group that I had met earlier in the day got there shortly after me, and all of them started on the half gallon challenge. I¢m pretty sure most of them finished (proud, but with a lot of regret). I went to the AT museum, which was pretty cool, since it had info on the history of the At, a snapshot of each state, and some other stories about records and things like that. They also had the original signs from Springer, the halfway marker, and Katadhin. After a little while there, I packed up and was trying to decide if I should get a campsite at the park or continue on, since I could already feel blisters forming. There were two marked campsites on the path to the next shelter, so I figured I might as well try my best to continue forwards. So, I got my pack on and started (gingerly) up yet another hill. Uphill was definitely the most painful for my blisters, and I passed an unmarked campsite partway up the hill, but I didn¢t really want to have to start the next morning with the rest of that climb, so I decided to keep going to the marked campsite, which was located near the top of this climb. When I finally got there, I saw that it was essentially a one tent campsite, and there was already one person there. There was really no other option but to go to the next campsite, so I pushed forwards. Another climb led me to that campsite, but all of the tent spots looked like they had rocks and roots and were slanted. It didn¢t look very appealing. I had two options: suck it up and set up my tent in the best one I could find, or get to the shelter which was another few miles away. It was getting later in the day by this point, around 6, and I knew sunset was at 8:30, but being in the woods, it would get darker much earlier than that. I decided screw it, I¢ll take a rest day tomorrow to apologize to my feet for the extra abuse I¢m about to put on them and started up again, going about as fast as I had been in the beginning of the day. I finally got to the shelter turnoff, where it said the shelter was 0.2 miles east. Let me tell you, that was more like 0.4 miles, which was very annoying at the time. But I arrived at around 7:30, just as it was starting to get dark. I quickly cooked dinner and got ready for bed after sending another round of check-in texts. I was pretty exhausted at that point, and went to sleep quickly. I was woken up at some point in the middle of the night to coyotes calling to each other, which was fun to experience, but at least they weren¢t right next to me or anything. Anyway, as I said at the beginning of this post...it was a really long day.