*Virtual AT Thru-Hike 2020 Note*
Going forward, I’ll be adding the real day number to each of the post titles. For some reason, back in 2016 I wanted to only count the days we were actually hiking. When we took our first week-long break, I didn’t want to inflate our hiking day count. Looking back, that was just part of our hike. That’s part of the whole experience. Sometimes you just do take a good chunk of time away… it’s inevitable. In any case, the text from the posts will be unaltered (aside from some light editing for grammar, spelling, etc…). So enjoy!
I decided to continue numbering the days that we’re actually on the trail, so that’s why this post is day 28, even though we were off for a week. The way we see it, we would’ve taken a zero in Hot Springs, then continued on the 30th if we hadn’t gone to Asheville so Casey could make her appointment. We’ll continue to count zero days as days on the trail, but not these “vacations” from the trail. Also, thanks for being patient with the posts. Service hasn’t been as good since we got back on the trail, so it may be a few days between posts. I also may just do a text post followed by pictures when I get better service or wi-fi.
That having been said, after a week off, we’re back to it! First off, I want to give a big shout out to Scott and Abi who not only put us up for the week, but also picked us up, and drove us back to Hot Springs, which was a total of about 4 hours of driving… it was very awesome of them, and we really can’t thank them enough… so again… Scott and Abi… thanks very much for your hospitality and help.
We got dropped off right around 10am in Hot Springs, and we pretty much got right to it. The weather was good all day, a bit warm, and the hike up out of Hot Springs was steep. The fires were out, and that section of trail reopened on the Monday we were off, so we were able to start right out of Hot Springs. It became quickly apparent why they closed off this section of trail, as we hiked through burned forest pretty much all day. It smelled like a campfire, and the ground was all charred. It was pretty wild to see it. Forest fires aren’t always such a bad thing… in fact they’re a very natural part of the cycle. They help to clear out old growth, and create a rich soil for new, young trees to thrive in. We passed a few signs at the end of the day that stated the area is a prescribed burn area. I’m not sure if that’s what the fires were, but the forest service still uses controlled burns as an important part of the forest management.
We ended up doing a total of 12.4 miles today, and we’re camped out about 2 miles north of Spring Mountain shelter in a place called Deep Gap. The water source here was a bit further than we expected… downhill. We had a brief moment of worry when we thought there was no water source and we might have to keep moving… but it didn’t come to that thankfully.
It’s good to be back out here, but still a little strange. All the thru-hikers we had met before Hot Springs are all a week ahead of us, so we’re out here with new people. It kind of feels like we’ve started over. I have a feeling that once we pick up the pace a bit we’ll catch at least a few of the hikers we were with before. Still, it’ll be fun to meet some new people… join a new little bubble. Since we just took so much time off, we’re not planning on taking another zero day until we reach Damascus, which is in about 180 miles. We hope to reach it in about 12 days, which means a 15 mile per day pace… which I think we’re now capable of without injury.
I give it at least 10 days. I hit 28 miles in one day hiking into Damascus. It will flatten right out. Don’t get stuck in Damascus. That town sucks hikers in hard! Take a day and get moving out of there. Hope all is well!