Mountaineer Shelter to Dennis Cove Road
15 miles
Weather: beautiful except for one cell
Man was I sore when I woke up. But it was an absolutely beautiful morning with the sun peaking over the ridge. I get on my way through the thick growth of this low elevation. Of course, now that I am completely blocked in a forest, that's when its a beautiful sky. No, not when I'm hiking 10 miles on balds above 5000ft yesterday. I should have been enjoying the wonderful hike more, but my knees were killing me. I made it 9 miles to the next shelter and then had to hike down each side of the ridge to get water and ask a man about a bear. I collapsed on the bench for a good 2 hours. I had only 6 miles to the road so I pushed on. I made it down by 5:20pm and walk across the road to a group of kids unpacking a car. Just after I said hello, one asks me, "are you Jake Smith?" My eyes were quite blurry from the hours of sweat dripping into them. Yes I responded realizing that I was standing in front of Greg Smolen, an engineering classmate at UT. He was going camping with a bunch of his friends from work. But seriously, what are the chances of me coming down off the trail to a road in the middle of nowhere and step right up to someone I know? We had a great time chatting before I headed up to Kincora. This place is absurd. It is extremely expensive, a complete rip-off. All I got was a queen bed, a shower, a kitchen to cook in, laundry facilities, and a ride into town and back. And he expected me to pay $4. I gave a ten and a promise that I will be back to volunteer. Bob Peoples organizes AT work groups for hundreds of miles of the trail. That amazing shelter that I slept in last night, all his doing. Erosion is a horrible problem around here, so he is rerouting the trail to have less of a gradient. This might lengthen the trail, but it does make it easier hiking. He is an absolute wonderful man and I wish I could organize the last item on his bucket list: ride in a hot-air balloon. You wouldn't believe how nice the shower felt. But the coolest part is that I'm sleeping in his treefort. He's got a big queen bed up in the trees, how cool is that? Well, I figure I'll spend 3 or 4 days from here to make it to Damascus, VA. This trip is turning out to be much more of an adventure than I was expecting. Oh, and I'm over 10% done with the trail. Yay!
High: Kincora!!!
Low: got rained on :-(
Oh, and I'm laughing at all of you dealing with the gas prices! "Everywhere is within walking distance if you have the time"
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