Miles today: 23.8
Total miles: 1610.7
We had a big day today. There were lots of annoying little ups and downs in the morning. I wanted to get a lot of miles out of the way early, so I didn’t stop until after the first shelter at 11:15 or so, at about mile 11. I sat and had lunch and waited for Delta to catch up. I waited for 45 minutes or so, but he didn’t show so I got up to leave. As I was walking away, he caught up but hadn’t eaten yet so I left as he stayed to get water and eat.
There was a roadwalk section and I was pleased to discover some unexpected Trail Magic at a stop sign–some cans of Coke. Nice! I took one and carried it as motivation to enjoy at my next break. That kept me going for the next 9 miles or so after which I enjoyed it and had another rest/snack break. As I was sitting, I could hear loud booms from a car radio’s bass on the gravel road just beyond where I was sitting. After my break, I walked by the tinted windows of the SUV with its radio blasting and was surprised to see a soccer mom type rocking out to Kid Cudi on this random gravel road in the middle of the woods.
The last five miles of the day were nice and easy hiking, which I was grateful for. On big days like this I always push myself to keep walking as much as possible so I don’t end up having to night hike the last few miles. Since I breaked so little, I actually got to the shelter quite early, a little after 4pm. I was not excited to see signs posted all around the shelter warning that there had been recent bear encounters there. One sign even specified it was an ‘aggressive’ bear encounter. Great. I’m actually terrified of bears, and was even more scared after reading some entries in the register about how bears approached the shelter in the middle of the night and wouldn’t leave. One person wrote that a bear destroyed their pack.
I wanted to hang my food in a tree to avoid drawing bears to the shelter, rather than hanging it in the shelter as I usually do. But Delta said he was keeping his food in the shelter and wouldn’t budge. So it’d be pointless to hang mine if there was still food in the shelter. I ended up hanging it in the shelter as usual and just hoping a bear wouldn’t come. I woke up a bunch during the night half expecting to find a bear next to me but luckily the night was uneventful. Crisis averted.