Today's miles 18.8. AT miles 788.2
After yesterday's uphills of course we had to come down again today. Downhills are never just that though, on the AT they always have some ups involved too, just to add a bit of interest. It was a cloudy but warm humid day today. We left camp at 9am and said goodbye to Nubbins as we're not sure if we'll see her again. She gave us the address of her partners hostel in Vermont, a place to stay when we get up there.
It was downhill initially then a two mile up and over mountain was thrown in. After that the trail became quite steady and levelish for a few miles with really nice paths that we could pick up a bit of speed on before descending down to Matts Creek shelter where we stopped for a snack. From there the trail levelled out again to reach the James River. Once we reached the river the trail ran alongside it for a mile before we hit the James River Footbridge, the longest foot-use only bridge on the AT. There were a few day hikers out in this area.
Once over the bridge and across a road the trail remained nice and level again for a while, still good paths until we reached Johns Hollow Shelter. We stopped here again for another snack, actually making a hot drink and some noodles for a change. Then it was another 2000ft uphill climb to Big Rocky Row which had great views back down to James River. A steady climb with lots of zigzags/switchbacks. The trail designers/maintainers deserve a medal today the paths were great with hardly any tricky or annoying obstacles. From the top we walked along the ridge line for about three miles until Saltlog Gap. Not an official camp spot but we decided we would stop and camp at the gap as it was about 5:45pm when we got there. It was another three miles to get to the next shelter and we didn't want to continue on and arrive really late. There was supposedly a good water supply near the gap, there was but it was half a mile down a steep path as Nigel found out!
We saw a few more new flowers today, Dwarf Iris and Bleeding Heart a couple we got photos of. In a week or so's time the forest floor is going to be so beautiful and smothered with flowers. There was also a great sunset tonight, a glowing red sky.
About 3:30am, the middle of the night, a hiker came past shining his torch at us and woke us up. He did apologise, I don't think he could work out that it was a tent in the dark. Our tent has reflective guy ropes that sometimes look like two eyes starring at you in torchlight.
No comments:
Post a Comment