Today's miles 19. AT miles 1942.9
People say walking the Appalachian Trail is just as much a mental journey as physical journey. We've not always felt this, only on a few occasions. Today though was definitely a mental day for me. I wasn't feeling 100% but somehow managed to find the strength both mental and physical to keep going for nineteen tough miles.
We were up early as we had some miles to catch up on today, we had planned a twenty three mile day. We were walking for 6:30. The weather was perfect again, a warm sunny day with a nice breeze, the strong winds had gone. The trail wasn't too bad early on, we had a shortish up then a steady downhill past Dunn Notch Falls. Then a long steady five and a half miles up to Wyman Mountain, it was early on in this section I felt my energy levels dropping.
From Wyman Mountain we descended down to Hall Mountain Lean-to then the tough rocky steep trail descents and ascents hit us again. First was just under a mile and a half and 1500ft of steep descent down to Sawyer Notch where we stopped to refill our water supplies. Back up again 1300ft in less than a mile to Moody Mountain only to go straight back down again another 1000ft. Finally and this last climb up seemed to take forever, I was flagging, a two and a half mile, 2200 ft, climb up to Old Blue Mountain. It was lovely at the top! Not many photos today though, sorry.
We, or I, was not going to make it to our intended camp spot another five and a half miles from Old Blue Mountain so we descended off the summit to a flatter area looking for a stealth camp site. We found the perfect spot hidden off the trail near to a stream about a mile and a half later just after 6:30pm. Just as we'd set up tent Breeze poked his head in to say hello, he'd heard us in the trees, not seen us. Somehow we managed to pass him on the trail in the afternoon. He continued another couple of miles.
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