Last night I thought it would be a good idea to put my rain fly in “front porch mode.” To use my hiking poles to prop up one side of the fly so it extended out almost horizontally, giving me much more space to maneuver. 

It was lovely to have the extra space as I was setting up camp last night and getting into bed. But last night the wind turned on and spent all night gusting. This made front porch mode a terrible idea. The fly flapped around incessantly and every few minutes a new gust of wind would come and tickle me awake. Needless to say, I did not sleep well. 

So I figured I’d get up early and start walking. I walked out of camp while most people were still fast asleep but the sun was already climbing in the sky. It was silent around me and beautiful. I stopped when I saw something run across the trail and had a quick staring contest with a bunny. When I went to grab my phone for a photo, he flinched and d’arted off deeper into the woods.

Then began the climb up. I had foolishly thought that since we were done with 6,000 ft mountains we were done climbing. But that was dead wrong. We made our way up a few balds this morning, all with incredible views. I made it to the top of one at the same time as Bugs and Brian. We had a quick celebratory photo shoot before heading down the other side. The wind making conversation hard and the temperature quite cold.

I had skipped breakfast this morning because it was chilly but by the downhill, I was regretting it. It was only 4 miles and all downhill, but my legs weren’t in it. It felt like it was taking forever. 

There was a quick moment of excitement when a hiker coming the other way stopped me to say “almost at 400, keep it up bud!” I was shocked that I was that far. It was pretty exciting!

But at the bottom of the hill my day was done. After two long days, I decided on a short day to a hostel. Only problem was that the hostel was .7 from the trail. And all up hill. So I did the only thing that made sense. I stuck out my thumb.

Within 5 minutes I had a ride and 10 minutes after that I had a Mac n cheese with chicken tenders, buffalo sauce, bacon and a beer all sitting in front of me. The day was turning up.

Jack rabbit, salt and Costa (maybe changing his name to Doug, stay tuned) showed up shortly after, followed by Ghost Tours. The rest of the day was spent lounging around, eating too much, drinking in the sun and generally having a good time. Jack rabbit would probably be upset if I mentioned that I beat him at chess in 5 moves, so I won’t mention it. 

The rest of the night was a mixer of locals and hikers. Pool, karaoke, conversation and lot more food. It was a great night, taking turns I never saw coming. 

Miles: 11

Key stats:

Elevation gained: 1700 ft

Mile marker: 396

Average number of teeth in the bar: not very many