I got handed one more cucumber face wipe as I got ready this morning. And so I was completely clean and smelled like a spa as i left camp. 

I knew blood mountain was coming up today (ominous name, much?) so was not surprised when the trail leading out of camp was straight up hill. However, when I ran into sue just a few minutes into my climb, she told me that this wasn’t blood mountain. Blood mountain, she said was after the town we were going to pass through later in the day. 

Not wanting to be bested by an unnamed hill, I popped in an audio book and picked up the pace. As the stories of the Manson family murders played through my ears, I continued up and cursed this unnamed hill, fearing what was to come this afternoon. 

 But to my pleasant  surprise, when I got to the top, I saw a plaque that read “Blood Mountain Summit.”  Sue was wrong, and I had unknowingly powered through my climb for the day. I snacked on some celebratory cheese and licorice (though not together) at the top before heading down the other side. Towards the town Sue had mentioned. 

Turns out sue was wrong here too. It wasn’t a town, just an outdoors store posted up on the side of the mountain. And best of all, they had food! A cup of coffee, a microwave cheese pizza (not meant to be personal size), a bag of Swedish fish, a can of coke and a Powerade later, I was not feeling good. 

But I was also waiting for a call from back home so I was in no rush. I set up shop at one of the tables out front, chatting with the groups as they came by. Fail (trail name, I think) and Danni and I made some tentative plans to meet at a brewery in a few days, Lefty and righty showed me the postcards they were sending home to their grandkids, a guy from the first night and I caught each other up on our adventures, a random man from a local brewery gave me a beer, and Gray mentioned she was a high school senior – she graduated in December so she could make the hike!

I almost made a quick pit stop at the famous show tree. Apparently ~25% of attempted thru hikes end at this store. And those who quit toss their shoes into this tree as sacrifice. I took a quick photo next to it to celebrate.

But eventually I had to move on. I saw the next two miles were straight up hill and knew tomorrow Jamie would thank me if I could at least knock those out today. So off I went. Powering through the late afternoon, racing sunlight to find a camp. 

But it worked out! I ended up running into McKay (still not sure if trail name or legal name) and we joined camp with two other tents (the occupants of which never stepped outside). We sat chatting on a log until darkness struck and the threat of rain became too real and called it a night.

Now climbing into bed wondering why I chose to read a book about gruesome murders while sleeping in the woods 

Key stats:

Miles: 9

Amount of blood on blood mountain: none