It was cold last night. Down in the high 30s the forecast said. But I think, 750 miles into this hike, I’ve finally nailed making the hammock warm enough on cold nights. I was able to recognize it was cold night, but it didn’t keep me up. I wasn’t shivering. 

Getting out of bed, however, was a completely different story. It was freezing outside of my sleeping bag. I tried to move quickly to pack up but my hands wouldn’t work fast enough. But when I went to brush my teeth, I saw the best thing I could’ve seen. Trail magic. 

“Coffee?” Asked Johnny Shofar as I got close. Yes please! I lined up with Baby Talk and a woman who I’ve met 100 times and is lovely and I really should remember her name, but I don’t. As he poured us coffee, I remembered my promise to myself. 

“Thank you,” I said. “And I don’t know how to phrase this. But… why do you do this?”

He told me about how he had gotten wrongfully evicted from his home a few years back and had been living out of his car. Last year when he was coming back from a fishing trip, he had stopped on the blue ridge parkway to make some breakfast when he met a bunch of hikers. He shared his food with them and, after learning about the trail and the community, started coming back every weekend to feed hikers pancakes. (Unfortunately this was his first trip out of the year so there were no pancakes). Also he said, he had been called by god to do this. Then he pulled out a shofar (I missed why he had a shofar, but I wasn’t about to ask) and blew a few notes for us before praying for our safety. 

I thanked him and grabbed a coke, a coffee and some cookies. I was still cold so I downed my drinks and stuffed the cookies in my pocket for later and hit the trail. 

The hike today was all uphill it seemed. It was beautiful and, before lunch at least, not steep. Just consistently uphill. 

Baby talk and i seemed to yo-yo each other as we hiked. Each one of us passing the other when they stopped for a break or to look at some nature. Most embarrassing was when I was stopped to look at a bird and I had a full conversation with it about how I was going to pass but he shouldn’t be scared. I looked back as I passed the bird and saw baby talk giggling to herself. 

Lunch was meant to be a quick meal on a log but baby talk came up as I was eating and we ended up sitting there and chatting for a while. She told me that she had been working for the forest service out of Colorado when she was let go as part of the government’s “efficiency” project. She was then brought back when it was ruled she couldn’t be fired. And, I didn’t quite follow the details, she was now getting paid still but didn’t have to work. Not bad. 

I walked off with her to start the big ascent. We were chatting for the first half mile until I felt my back pocket – empty. I realized I had left my phone back at lunch. I dropped my pack and walked a half mile back to grab my phone. And then a half mile back to my pack. Silently cursing myself for being so absent minded. 

As I walked on, however, I remembered I had cookies in my pocket and instantly my mood brightened! I pulled them out and bit into a lousy store bought chocolate chip cookie that tasted divine. I bit into the second one and almost spit it out. Oatmeal raisin?? What was this poison? I still ate the cookie, but I wasnt happy about it. 

I was still focused on the cookie when I realized that there was another massive rat snake next to me – at least 3 feet long. Even though they’re harmless, I instinctively ran from it. Moving my tired legs quicker than they’d gone in months.

Of course the day ended with a long ascent up Apple Orchard mountain, putting us over 6,000 feet of elevation gained on the day. I was exhausted when I got to camp but, after eating some dinner, was rejuvenated when we brought out the flint we had bought back in Roanoke. 

It took more tries than I’ll admit to, but eventually a strike of the flint worked. The leaf we were aiming at caught fire and we watched as everything else around it did too. It felt pretty cool to have lit a bonfire without a lighter. 

We started a game of rummy but it was cold again. Two hands in we called it and headed in for another early night into the tents. 

Key stats:

Miles: 21

Elevation gained: 6,400 ft

Mile marker: 772

Lighters used for tonight’s fire: 0