Date: 2015-03-23
From: Groundhog Creek Shelter

To: Deer Park Shelter
Miles today: 23.0

Today I woke up late, to the sound of Laughtrack's laughter. I hadn't set my alarm, so of course I didn't wake up to it. Like always though, I woke up almost every 2 hours in the night because of how uncomfortable it is. We had another very long day planned today, so I started with poptarts and oatmeal again. One instant pack of oatmeal definitely just doesn't cut it any more. I left the camp about 8.30am, with my new trail name: SweetBlood. It comes from yesterday's horsefly incident. I already knew that insects love me, so I have to remember to buy bug spray in Hot Springs. We had a climb up for the first few miles. The trail here is a lot like being back in Georgia, but fortunately a lot more going around the mountains than going over them. Today we had to climb up to Max Patch. It's a large bald hill that had fantastic panoramic views. We had wonderful clear sunny weather today, so we had gorgeous views again. I like walking on the balds because they remind me of hiking on Dartmoor. The climbing up to the bald top is less enjoyable. The sun today also meant more sunburn, for everyone. I am definitely going to return with a serious sunburn/tan line. My ears and the back of my legs have already started peeling, despite the aloe. After that, it was about 6 more miles to Lemon Gap, where I found FreshGround and all the other hikers - Rhode Island Express, Brightside, Laughtrack. I had 4 hotdogs, some hand cut chips and Little Debbie cakes. But best of all, I had Twinings English Breakfast tea. FreshGround had even gone to the trouble of getting milk. He has really gone the extra mile to try and give me a little taste of home. He said that maybe next time he will get a kettle. It's just amazing enough to get tea there. I told him that it was just like real tea, because it really was the closest you can get to real English tea out here. Before I left FreshGround's, he cut me a foam strip and taped it onto my hip belt. I have lost so much weight already that my hip belt cannot get any tighter, but with the padding it's much better. He also gave me some fishing line and a big needle to sew the foam on properly in the future. I have nothing but great things to say about FreshGround. His generosity has no bounds. After leaving his Leapfrog Cafe, we all made our way up into the hills again. We had another 11 miles to go, and it was already 2pm. I met some of the others at the next shelter, where they were suffering a little from excessive hot dogs, but after that I didn't see anyone until 6.30pm when I got to the final shelter. Today was a very long day in terms of hiking. 23 miles certainly wears down my feet. I have another blister. I've lost count of how many I have on my feet. More than 10, in various states of healing. Sleeping is also very uncomfortable because my feet need their own pillow for all the blisters. Towards the end of the hike, I started to get very impatient with my own hiking speed. I can only go about 2 miles an hour at the moment, so I can fairly easily predict what time I will get into a shelter. This also means that I check my watch far too often to see if I will get to the shelter soon or not. Today, I actually started jogging on the flats and downhills in the last mile or so, because of how slow I felt I was going. It was quite liberating to feel like I was getting somewhere at last, though I sweat so much as a result. It was also great to notice that my feet weren't completely destroyed by blisters yet, so I could actually jog and not just limp. Tomorrow we will walk just over 3 miles to get into Hot Springs. We are doing a nero (nearly zero miles) and then on Wednesday we will do an actual zero mile day again. Really, really looking forward to it all. Someone in the shelter just said that we have done 12 1/2 % of the trail already. Incredible. I never imagined that being here on the trail would be like this. It's so much better than I ever expected it would be, and it's people like FreshGround and Dragonfly at Newfound Gap who really make it very magical.