Day 32 – Musings from the Trail and Baby’s First 20mile Day !!!!

The farm to table fresh made dinner last night at Standing Bear was awesome, but my body is definitely not used to eating large quantities of greasy pork. Due to this, my body woke me up at 5:30 in the morning to go use the bathroom. Since I was up and needed to wash my hands in the kitchen, my domestic brain kicked in and started doing the sink full of dishes from the birthday party last night.

One of the guys who works for the hostel noticed I was washing the dishes at 545am, and since Standing Bear offers work for stay deals, he said he would make sure I got breakfast for free in exchange. Pretty sweet deal!

Of course as soon as he walked back out of the kitchen I noticed a sound of running water that wasn’t the sink. Oh s***, it had started raining and I hadn’t put my rain fly up last night. Someone had mentioned that the weather was supposed to be good all night so I didn’t bother, but I should have checked the weather myself. I ran back to my hammock site and started stuffing everything back into my backpack as fast as I could. Well, I was awake now.

I went back to the kitchen to finish the dishes, got some stretching in, ate one of my oatmeals for breakfast, then snagged a couple of pancakes and sausage from the hostel guys who were making hot breakfast that the rest of the campers would have to purchase. By then it was about 7am and I was feeling ready to hit the trail, but most of the others were just waking up.

The plan for the day (as of last night) was to do only 10 miles with Frickles, Simon, and Stoker, but with everything packed and feeling ready, I told them I would see them later and took off into the light rain at around 730. Freckles is still a bit apprehensive about pushing into bigger miles since she still has foot and leg pain that are bothering her from her previous injury. Meanwhile, I am really itching to start pushing a little further, and would love to get into the 15 mile a day range. Even though I’m going out alone today, I hope this isn’t goodbye and that I’ll see everyone again soon.

For today, it was just me in the foggy lightly raining morning. The fog was kind of cool, but became a little eerie when at some point at the top of a hill I saw a hint of a shape of a building and could hear the sound of electricity. I peeked over the top of the hill off trail to try to see what it was, but it looked like a fenced in area. Remembering the horror stories from my co-workers about hillbilly meth labs in the Appalachian Mountains, I decided to move on and not investigate further. I’m sure the building was something innocuous like a power generator station or something, but I may never know.

After a few hours of listening to my downloaded new episodes of a podcast I like, the fog lifted, and I switched to listening to Sneezy (the funk band whose lead singer and keyboard player I had met on the trail last week). I only passed a few other hikers before seeing a sign that said Max Patch was only 6 more miles away. No way! I had already hiked 7 miles without realizing it by 11am.  I decided to try pushing to Max Patch to round out the day to 13 miles, and I knew from conversation last night that Zen and Fraggle were planning to stop near there tonight too, so I wouldn’t be completely alone if Frickles, Simon, and Stoker stop at 10 miles.

As I carried on alone, I did as I usually do and started talking to myself, and wondering about all the little things around me. So the following are some random thoughts and musings from the trail.

Musings

How much paint did it take to put every white blaze on the trees along the AT? I bet you could paint the white blazes all along the trail with just one can of paint. Is it a special type of paint to withstand the weather and the moss growing over it? What’s the procedure for marking the trees? It looks like they do some sanding of the bark to make a flat spot for the blaze.

If I eat enough protein, will my toes get bigger because of the gains? My toes are sore from all the hiking, so I’m betting I’m building toe muscles. My feet are going to be so swole after this. Is that why they say hikers feet grow up to a size in shoe from through hiking? Are the bones in their feet spreading out, or are their feet getting bigger because of muscles?

Do Pop-Tarts really expire? Unfortunately Standing Bear hostel has a reputation for selling expired snack foods. I couldn’t see the date on the Pop-Tarts that I bought from them… I wonder if they actually expire or if they’re preserved by all their sugar.

Funk music makes the downhills easier and reminds me to bend my knees more and engage my quads. Plus the time goes by faster.

Trees are cool. Is tree bark like toenails? Some toenails are rough, some are smooth, and some peel off! Like tree bark.

Will I regret shipping home my sweats I was wearing a camp clothes? Or my drinking cup? Only time will tell.

I spent some time making videos about the trees I saw on the trail too, which you can check out on my YouTube channel.

Trail Magic !!!

One of the best parts of this trail magic was the fact that there were signs welcoming hikers in, and then the ladies running the show clapped and cheered for each of us as we came down the trail! It felt really special and exciting. This was right before Max Patch, so I hung out for about an hour and a half, eating hot dogs and cookies, welcoming in more hikers, and enjoying the company.

Finally, a hiker I recognized came in and I continued on up to Max Patch with him.

The view at the top was pretty incredible. 360 degree clear skies and mountains all around. It was interesting realizing which mountains were the Smokies, and thinking “they’re less than 30 miles away but they look so far in the distance”. The perspective is really hard to understand with all the layers of mountains surrounding us.

Max Patch is a popular spot for the easy access to views. The hike up from the road and parking lot below is less than a mile, so there’s a low barrier to entry. The parks service has put out signs saying camping is not allowed at the top of the patch to allow regrowth of native plants that were squashed by large numbers of campers in the past.

I knew Zen and Fraggle would be camping just down the hill where there are spots for tents so they could watch the sunset and sunrise at the top. However, I wasn’t feeling compelled to stick around for the sunrise there, since I had gotten some beautiful views while in the Smokies just the other day. Today my miles counter was taking the lead on my hike, so I decided to go on to a shelter 3 miles down the hill, use the privy (hot dogs move fast), then see about going further on to a campsite. I estimated I would get in about 18 miles today and I was feeling great since there hadn’t been any major ascents or descents and I was well fed.

After the visit to the privy and a water bottle refill at the creek, I pressed on alone. One of the hikers I was familiar with was pushing to the next tentsite too, but was far ahead of me. My other compatriat from trail magic decided to stay at the shelter for the night, so it was just me taking on the last 5 miles for the day at around 5pm.

Hitting 20 Miles

The hike through golden hour was gorgeous. My feet and toes were still sore, but my legs were feeling good as I kept going. As always, the last mile was the worst, and I realized it was definitely time to eat again.

I finally made it to the campsite around 7pm. That was almost a 12 hour day! Granted I took a nice long lunch break, but it was a long and lovely day of hiking. No crazy climbs, just some nice rolling hills. As I made dinner, I checked my map to get my total mileage.

20.2 !!! I am so impressed with myself. I treated myself to more cookies and snacks from trail magic I had taken to go plus more snacks I had been carrying. I knew I needed to refuel well since this was a long day. Tomorrow I am definitely sleeping in and taking my time in the morning. It’s only 14 miles to Hot Springs, and it’s apparently pretty flat, so should be another “easy” day!