Today was a pretty good day… I think Tuesday will need to be called trail magic Tuesdays, since we hit not one, but two trail magic stops! It certainly made up for the missed trail magic a few days ago. So far all the best trail magic we’ve gotten have been on Tuesday.
The first was at a random gap where the guy needed a 4 wheel drive vehicle to get up there. The guy who put it on goes by Buttah, and he thru- hiked in 2005. Along with the food and drink, he resurrected a game I haven’t played since middle school… 4-square. We played a few rounds, and I felt like I was back on the playground. We used to play that game every day, I’m amazed it didn’t come up in college. Buttah gave the ball to one of the hikers we’ve been with the past few nights and told us that back in ’05 they played 4-square the whole way to Maine. I have a feeling we’ll be playing again soon.
The second trail magic was up on Big Bald, put on by the parents of a current thru-hiker. They had muffins and brownies, apples, cheese sticks, and lemonade. It was awesome after the tough hike up big bald. Plus the views from up there were some of the best of the hik
e. I’m going to say it now and guess that Big Bald will be in the top 10 views from our trip, and it’s only at mile 325.
We ended up doing 15.8 miles today. We toyed with the idea of doing the full 27 to Erwin today, but with the trail magic stops, and the climbs a bit tougher than expected, we decided that would be a bad idea. We’re actually camped out right near a road in Spivey Gap. It’s not a very busy road, which is good, but unfortunately no services nearby (e.g. convenience store, gas station).
We thought about doing a quick resupply in Erwin tomorrow then continuing on, but since we still have to do just over 11 miles to get there, I think we’re going to end up at the hostel for a night. It’ll be nice to get cleaned up and have some town food. We should be just about a week out of Damascus once we leave Erwin, though we still have the challenge of the Roan High Knob to conquer… a 6212′ mountain, which we currently have scheduled for Saturday, which is supposed to be a bit cooler than it has been all week, so we’ll keep an eye on that. I think it’s at least supposed to be clear this weekend, so maybe we’ll get another good view for our efforts.
That’s been one of the more challenging, but kind of enjoyable parts of this journey… the constant planning and re-planning. It’s nice to have the flexibility to decide to stop when we feel like stopping, but we also have to make sure we don’t run out of food before a resupply opportunity. I kind of feel like I’m still doing my previous job out here… things are constantly changing so we’ve got to keep planning. I think in one of my upcoming posts I’ll put together a little pitch about how we’re progressing to the original “plan”. Gotta keep those project lead skills sharp while I’m out here!
