Day 64
Start: Chestnut Knob Shelter
End: Jenkins Shelter
Miles Hiked: 10.7
Miles on AT: 580.7
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This morning was a stark contrast to last night. Instead of wind and cold clouds, we awoke to blue skies and warm sunshine. Last night, I had to get out and adjust the tent because it was flapping in the wind too much. Even with earplugs in I could hear the violent whipping and it was keeping me up. It must’ve been around 12 or 1 am and the sky was littered with stars, the milky way splashed hazily across the darkness. The fireflies blinked in the distance, putting on their own version of a light show. There was only one word to describe it: magical.
After fixing the tent and watching the nighttime entertainment for a few minutes, I crawled back into my quilt and had a much more peaceful night. When the sun was in the sky, Janitor and I got out of our tent and joined a few others who had hiked up earlier to catch the sunrise. In the full brightness of morning, the sun was warm on my face and I was dry! It’s really the small things that matter.
We hung out with the other hikers for a good chunk of the morning before heading out around 9:30 am. The day passed slowly and uneventfully. The trail took us down the ridge on one side of the basin and up and onto the ridge along the other side. Despite spending most of the day up high, we didn’t have many views. Instead, the trees were our constant companions.
We weren’t making much progress today. Janitor was moving slowly, favoring his ankle so that he didn’t injure it further. As 5 pm arrived, we found that we had only managed to cover about 10 miles. I knew that reaching our goal of 15 miles for the day would mean at least 3 more hours of hiking plus stopping for dinner and I couldn’t bear the thought of that.
A lot of people advocate for hiking long, but there’s a difference between hiking long when it feels good and hiking long when it’s sapping all of your energy to go only a few miles. Our pace was putting me to sleep and sucking my energy, so I suggested we just call it at the next shelter and continue on tomorrow. That way, Janitor would be able to rest his ankle a bit earlier.
At the shelter, we saw some familiar faces, including Medic and MacGyver, the two hikers who had hiked up to see the sunrise earlier in the day, and Minion. The three of us chatted and ate dinner. A little while later another hiker, Socks, came and joined us. It was great company.
As night fell, Janitor became interested in sleeping in the shelter. Up until this point, we had not yet slept in a shelter due to my aversion to dust, mice, and sleeping near other people. Despite being anti-shelter, I agreed to sleep in it to at least have one shelter experience. We’ll see how it goes. Now, the other hikers are in their tents and it’s just Janitor and I in the shelter. Light’s out!
And that’s day 64.
A version of this post originally appeared on TheTrek.co.