Day 61 - Brown Mountain Shelter to Seely Woodworth

Slept til after 9, I think. I know it was late. All the people at the shelter were long gone, except for Smittee.

Dave and Smittee had planned to hitch one mile to a town with a store and phone. I didn’t need anything, so I pushed ahead on my own. Tough uphill, and it was also a lot hotter than it’s been in a while. The heat drags me down!

Man who gave Longshanks and Smittee a hitch

Murph and Stray Cat left a note that the store was closed and there was no phone, so I expected Dave and Smittee to catch up to me at any time. Wrote in my journal and had lunch on top of the bald. Kept going. I like when there are a lot of signs telling mileage on the trail. Two miles to the road, 3.5 miles to the shelter, etc. I try to break my day into small, manageable goals, which seems to help.

Today was going by slow. Just wanted to get to the shelter, and even the radio wasn’t helping that much. I got to thinking about the impact that I'm having on the natural world. How many bugs have I accidentally squashed? How many seeds have I kicked that will no longer produce a seedling? What damage are my poles doing to the trail?

Got to the shelter around 4:45. It’s now 7:30, and Dave still isn’t here. Been waiting for him to have dinner and set up the tent. Hope he gets here soon! Oh, I passed Bear and Mark after lunch. They say I hike really fast (they didn’t get here til after 6). Kind of funny, since I felt so draggy today. They said they might hitch a rope to me to get up the trail faster.

There were lots of deer around the shelter last night. Dave and Smittee showed up around 8:15, 15 minutes after I had scarfed down my freeze-dried tuna lunch in desperation. Wasn’t too happy. I guess they had hitched 10 miles to get to a store/phone and didn’t get back on the trail til after 3.

We saw a flyer at the shelter about a B & B 2 ½ miles off the trail offering free lunch to hikers. It would mean five extra miles, but we were only planning to do 14 to begin with. I was happy because we’d actually be doing 19 miles. Dave was happy because not all of the miles were on the trail. Win-win situation. Slept very well. Is it my new pink pillow (from the Wildwood hiker box)?