Day 27: Another Uneventful Day…

April 3: Yep, it’s another uneventful day. Perhaps even less eventful than yesterday! It rained overnight, but not much and had stopped by morning.

Early in the morning, the trail passed Big Butt Mountain, which naturally led to much thru-hiker discussion about how it got its name.

For part of the day, the trail actually went due south, which is annoying when you’re trying to hike north. But the Appalachian Trail twists and winds and sometimes, takes you southwards. Trail north, but compass south.

When I arrived at Hogback Ridge Shelter at the end of the day, the shelter was already starting to look full with Goosebumps, her two friends, (Super) Lemon, and Loner Boner (get your mind out of the gutter—the guy’s real last name is Boner!) and Strapped already in the 6-person shelter. So there was still room for me, and it had started to sprinkle upon my arrival, but I decided to set up my tarp instead. I didn’t feel like being in a crowded shelter tonight.

Loner Boner is an interesting character. He’s an older gentleman—I was afraid to ask his age, but he said something about being 72 or so. Give or take a year or two. Early 70s. I think that’s what I heard, at least. He’s friendly and had already thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail not once, but twice meaning he had double the number of trail stories that I had to tell. (At least about the Appalachian Trail. Goosebumps and I had more PCT stories!)

While cooking dinner, a gust of wind blew over Lemon’s boiling water, splashing it onto her bare legs. Her legs turned red and definitely gave everyone a scare, but no serious harm was done.

During the day, I had picked up a couple of sticks I thought might be suitable replacements for the broken part on my trekking pole, but after making dinner, I found two segments of an aluminum tent pole abandoned at the shelter. Perfectly straight, small enough to fit the broken trekking pole. This might be perfect! Unfortunately, the tent pole was too skinny and my trekking pole could not get a grip on it. Every time I picked it up, the tent pole slid out.

To fix that, I wrapped the tent pole with duct tape to make it marginally bigger and a better fit, at which point it seemed to work perfectly. The pole was slightly askew giving the trekking pole a bent look, but it was small enough that I didn’t think it would be a problem. So far as I was concerned, the trekking pole was fixed! At least until it broke again or the tent pole fell out.

These pink flags mark a recent reroute of the AT that hasn’t yet been blazed!

Well, some blazes have been installed, but they’re so new, you can still see the area that was scraped clean before it was painted.

Devil Fork Gap; NC 212

I see a stile like this, and I think, “That’s not how this is supposed to work!” In fact, why was it even created if you can just walk around it?!

More graves on the trail, but these have daffodils! =)

Spring is trying to peek out!

Near the end of the day, I felt some pain on the back of my foot and found this chaffing. I slapped a band-aid on it which took care of the problem. Weird that I can hike hundred of miles in a pair of shoes without any problems, then presto! A problem! After a few days, the problem went away as mysteriously as it appeared. I was a little disappointed that it wasn’t a blister, though, because I still haven’t gotten one and haven’t been able to name any!

The shelter was already getting pretty full when I arrived, so I set up my tarp instead. (It was sprinkling when I arrived, and much more rain was expected overnight.) That’s my tarp on the far left side of the photo.

This was one of the more interesting privies on the trail. First, notice that there’s no door. You get quite a view while doing your business! (The shelter is behind the privy, so hopefully nobody there gets a view while you are doing your business.) More interesting, however, is that gap in the floor. You do a poop, and it rolls down the pile of poop to your feet. It’s… odd… Just watch where you put your feet!