(3/9) Half Day
We woke up to a beautiful sunrise this morning. Last night was restless as our fellow shelter-goers were loud snorers and the shelter had a lot of mice. I actually had a mouse sit on my head at one point until I swatted it off of my so it wouldn’t tear into my sleeping bag for nesting material (like they have done to Tyler’s sleeping bag). We got on the trail pretty early but we’re not I a rush as we were basically taking a half day.
The views today were still very good, and I was still unable to take pictures as my phone was dead, but we spent most of the day descending out of the Smokies. The weather was perfect again and as we were getting close to our first road crossing of the day a section hikers told us that someone was giving out free breakfast up ahead.
There is a very famous trail angel who calls himself Fresh Ground. If anyone is interested, the best YouTube series I have found on the AT is on a channel called Outdoor Adventures, by a guy named Frozen. Anyway, he ran into Fresh Ground a lot. So when we heard that there was a guy ahead doing trail magic, we wondered if it might be Fresh Ground. We quickly hiked the next half mile in hopes of warm food. When we got there we were surprised to see that it was Fresh Ground, who is kind of like a celebrity to us. He called us over and offered us a ton of food. Even more surprisingly, two other people who hiked with Frozen last year were there: Merica and RD. We were blown away by everyone’s generosity to us, as they gave us as much food as we would eat and sent us with food to carry on our way. It was very cool to be able to interact with people who we looked up to as we were planning our hike.
After our 3 course breakfast we struggled to hike the last 1.5 miles to the Standing Bear hostel. This hostel is on a farm just off the trail, and it’s a really cold spot. When we got here we resupplied and set up our tents about a quarter mile from the hostel, thinking we can camp tonight and save some money. We expect a warm night and some rain. The rain will probably continue tomorrow, but we will probably hike around 20 miles. Our goal is to be in the next town, Hot Springs, by the end of the day after tomorrow. We will also break the 250 mile mark first thing in the morning.
Goodnight.
Walker
Check out Tyler’s blog too- https://tylerat2020.blogspot.com/?m=1
The views today were still very good, and I was still unable to take pictures as my phone was dead, but we spent most of the day descending out of the Smokies. The weather was perfect again and as we were getting close to our first road crossing of the day a section hikers told us that someone was giving out free breakfast up ahead.
There is a very famous trail angel who calls himself Fresh Ground. If anyone is interested, the best YouTube series I have found on the AT is on a channel called Outdoor Adventures, by a guy named Frozen. Anyway, he ran into Fresh Ground a lot. So when we heard that there was a guy ahead doing trail magic, we wondered if it might be Fresh Ground. We quickly hiked the next half mile in hopes of warm food. When we got there we were surprised to see that it was Fresh Ground, who is kind of like a celebrity to us. He called us over and offered us a ton of food. Even more surprisingly, two other people who hiked with Frozen last year were there: Merica and RD. We were blown away by everyone’s generosity to us, as they gave us as much food as we would eat and sent us with food to carry on our way. It was very cool to be able to interact with people who we looked up to as we were planning our hike.
After our 3 course breakfast we struggled to hike the last 1.5 miles to the Standing Bear hostel. This hostel is on a farm just off the trail, and it’s a really cold spot. When we got here we resupplied and set up our tents about a quarter mile from the hostel, thinking we can camp tonight and save some money. We expect a warm night and some rain. The rain will probably continue tomorrow, but we will probably hike around 20 miles. Our goal is to be in the next town, Hot Springs, by the end of the day after tomorrow. We will also break the 250 mile mark first thing in the morning.
Goodnight.
Walker
Check out Tyler’s blog too- https://tylerat2020.blogspot.com/?m=1
Glad you ran into Fresh Grounds and we're served a very welcomed meal. Funny how you can miss the simpler things in life with all the commotion around us. Pretty funny about the mice eating sleeping bags and generally being quite the pests.
ReplyDeleteyep. Good food tastes so much better when you’ve been eating nothing but junk for a week. Mice are crazy.
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