Cranking Out the Miles
It's about 7:50 p.m. on the 28th, and I’m already in my tent for the night, mostly because I'm hiding from the bugs. I’m not the only one. Just about everyone at this site tonight is doing the same.
Very long day today — 16 miles. It was also very warm, and I sweat quite a bit. The trees haven’t bloomed yet or leafed out or whatever the term is, so there's very little shade. Hiking in still air in 80-plus degree weather with no shade is kind of suboptimal. That probably goes without saying.
I woke up this morning at the Boots Off Hostel after a very nice evening there. I had breakfast with Chappie and Banana, Coffee and Bodacious, and Misneach — the usual crew these days. As I mentioned yesterday, some of them were going to do some canoeing or kayaking today and aqua blaze the next section of trail, and they tried to convince me to come along, but I want to get to Damascus to see S., so I politely declined. Still, it was really nice of them to invite me, and I definitely appreciated it.
I hit the trail at about 8:30. The town of Hampton where Boots Off is sits on a big lake, and the beginning of my hike today was just circling the lake, which was quite a nice way to start the day. But before too long, there was a pretty steep ascent, and then the trail spit out at a dam. That's the second dam I've crossed on the trail, the first one being Fontana Dam. And then at about four and a half miles in, the trail leaves the dam and the lake area and goes up into the mountains at a pretty steep angle.
About eight or so miles in, I reached the Vandeventer Shelter, where I ran into Beans, who had stopped there to eat lunch. I joined him for a bit, and we sat on some nice rocks with a view overlooking the lake. Afterward, I had about seven more miles before I got to the shelter I was targeting for the night.
That's where the challenge of the day really began. It was getting quite warm, and as I said, there was very little shade, combined with a lot of climbs. So before long, I got extremely sweaty and very hot. I couldn’t get much relief from the direct sun, and that’s made me a little bit concerned about what's going to happen in the summer. I definitely need to think about that and do some strategizing.
The Iron Mountain Shelter — where I am now — doesn't have a water source, so I needed to stop at a spring that's 0.2 miles before it. Let me tell you, I was all too happy to get to that spring. I filled up with lots of water, and as soon as I got to the shelter, I downed an entire liter with some Propel electrolytes in it. I needed to get rehydrated, for sure.
To be honest, I was just too worn out to do much cooking. So I experimented with cold-steeping ramen, and lo and behold, it worked. So, that's probably something I’ll need to consider doing more often when the hotter weather really sets in. You have to give it a little more time, of course, but it’s certainly an easy dish to prepare.
When I left Erwin, Tennessee, a week ago, I was at mile 344.4, and now I'm at mile 444.7. I’ve done 100 miles in seven days. I’m probably not going to keep up this kind of pace, but I definitely want to get to Damascus to see S. That means tomorrow will be another 16-mile day, and my seven-day running total will stay at more than 100 miles. For now, I'm all too happy to put in the miles so I can get to Damascus.
