What was a nice clear evening last night turned into a rainy night, rainy morning, and very wet 19.0 miles. It’s quite interesting how different people are affected by the weather on the trail. For me it doesn’t really matter if it’s sunny, sprinkling, windy, or pouring rain – I know I’m still going to end up at the same place – the only difference will be whether or not my backpack has a cover on it while I walk. For other people the mere prospect of rain means doing dramatically fewer miles or even considering a zero day. There’s a brother and sister duo I’ve ran into a few times and the girl is always complaining about rain, either that it might rain soon or that she’s still got wet clothes from last time.
In any case today was rainy from start to finish. I was the first one out of Knot Maul and before long I ran into Lauren, Elliot, DJ, and Raven again, they were still packing up at a creekside campsite. I kept moving and began the big climb up Birk’s Garden to Chestnut Knob. The mountain started off rather steep for the first mile then gradually got easier as the trail emerged from the forest into more grassy fields. Even in the fields it kept climbing eventually reaching a nice fully enclosed shelter at the top. We had quite the gathering for lunch there – everyone from Knot Maul (except crutches) and everyone from the campsite showed up within about 15 minutes. So that was the most people I’ve seen in one place at once on the trail.
From Chestnut Knob there was about six miles of very rocky ridgeline hiking. Everything was wet and slippery making for some pretty slow going. At the end of the ridge there was a gravel road and more trail magic! Piglet was there to meet her husband who was thru-hiking. She picks him up at the end of every day so he can hike without a pack and brings some magic for everyone else. Got a couple chocolate chip cookies and some fresh fruit before moving on. I couldn’t stop for long because there was a pretty big race for the shelter – with so many people heading for the same spot and no one wanting to pitch a tent in the rain – space was at a premium. When I did make it to Jenkins around 5 there were two people already asleep – a mother and her 13 year old son. More of us started arriving, and and when the mother first woke up she said they were staying the night here. After a few minutes she seemed fairly annoyed by people talking and cooking and they started packing up to head off and camp somewhere. I guess she thought no one would show up to a shelter on a rainy day.
Feeling pretty good for the end of a 19 mile day. The only time my feet hurt is when I stand on them for the first time each morning. As soon as I get in shoes and take a few steps I’m fine. I had been having some issues with my left shoulder where my pack strap came over but I’ve figured that out too. I had been having a kind of accumulating discomfort – the longer I wore the pack the worse it got, but if I stopped even for about five minutes it would go away entirely for a few miles. I figured out that if I just leave the sternum strap unbuckled the straps stay wider and I can go all day no problem.