Day 52
Start: Vandeventer Shelter
End: TN 91
Miles Hiked: 11.4
Miles on AT: 449.3
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Well, we had to cut our section short today. We were supposed to hike 14.5 miles today and 3.5 miles into town tomorrow, but Janitor’s ankle started to hurt much more than before, so we decided to get off at the next road crossing.
It didn’t rain last night and the skies were looking good. The lake below was completely covered in clouds; you wouldn’t have known it was there if you hadn’t seen it the day before.
As usual, everyone left before us. We had to take it very slowly today, so an easy 11 mile day became much longer. The trail was eerily quiet today. There were a number of weekend hikers, but we only saw 2 thru hikers, one of them being a slackpacker. Yep, we were definitely behind the bubble now.
I wish there were real-time stats about the bubble. I know about wherearethehikers.com, but that uses historical data to estimate where the bubble is. Anyway, I’m supposed to be hiking my own hike and not worrying about where other people are on trail. I’m not going to worry about it.
Despite the easy terrain, progress was slow. Janitor and I found a lot of topics to discuss to pass the time. He likes to debate and create philosophical arguments, so he always has something to say. Today I asked, “What makes revolution valuable? Is forward progress always worth the cost of human life lost?” That kept us occupied for an hour or so.
We took our second breakfast break at a stealth site with the most perfect rock to lean on, its cool surface absorbing some of our excess heat. 2 hours later, we had lunch at Iron Mountain Shelter.
As he does, Janitor still picked up a bunch of trash despite being in pain. The most annoying pieces of trash are the small pieces of wrappers that people pull off when they open a bar or a packet of electrolyte mix. These little triangular and rectangular pieces either get blown by the wind or are carelessly tossed by their owners.
PSA: Despite being small, these pieces of plastic are still trash and need to be packed out.
A mile or so later, we stumbled upon a monument to Nick Grindstaff, who “lived alone, suffered alone, and died alone,” and reflected on this location and what his life could’ve looked like in the late 1800s and early 1900s. I’m sure he’s had a lot more visitors in death than in life.
Overhead, the skies were turning gray and distant rumbles caught our attention. With a storm approaching, we made our final push to our pickup location. We got there just in time for the first few fat drops to start falling. As we got to town, the storm swung into full motion. We picked up a brace for Janitor and made it to our cabin for the night. Janitor’s ankle was definitely swollen, so we decided to take a zero tomorrow and then reassess our next steps.
And that’s day 52.
A version of this post originally appeared on TheTrek.co.