June 10 Mile 675

Whew! What a day ! Didn't mean to do it, but we hiked over 17 miles today. Hoped to stop at 15, but there was nowhere to camp and the miles just seemed to stretch longer and longer. Today we went up a mtn range, as usual, but then down into a beautiful valley of farms and pastures- but it was very hot. The hottest so far- about 90 degrees. The pastures had grasses nearly 4 ft high and with the trail just a few inches wide it was a mesmerizing walk. We were starving for lunch, so we stopped where we could by a road and looked around for some shade. I found a little pocket of shade under a tree. We put our gear down and sat down and Cisco said , " this is full of poison ivy! " So we quickly moved out into the sun. Better heat stroke than itching, I guess. Today was filled with "stiles" - as you go thru a pasture that is fenced, they have these crude wooden steps that go over the barbed wire fences and you climb hoping that you don't slip down in the barbed wire! After lunch we hiked on but were very hot. Luckily we found a creek and some trail magic, Mountain Dews in the creek for us. Yum. Need that caffeine and sugar. Found out later it was a gift of Mineown.
We got rejuvenated and kept going. Went by the second oldest tree in the trail- a 300 year old oak. Massive. This is the way all the oaks were like when the settlers came. Wish there were more like it. Anyway, hiked up another mtn- seemed like a 45 degree steep up- back on the ridge. Thought we could quickly run the ridge to a campsite promised in our guidebook. No such luck. The trail took us over a mile an hour of slanted slabs of rocks. So, we are at the top of the mountain, great views by the way, and hiking with the left leg higher than the right- hoping not to slide off the mountain. But to protect us from falling were bushes of poison ivy! So if you slipped, you went right into them figured this was punishment from the AT gods for complaining about the "boring" trail over the past few days. Finally got thru the area- beautiful and actually fun. Gave us great views of the next day's hike up the next mtn range. Started to come down the mtn- looked for a campsite- no site! no water! Had to hike to the shelter- glad it was there. 17 plus miles. Got there at 8 PM. A 12 hour hiking day. We were pooped. The shelter area was full of people. So we found a tent spot cooked and ate our dinner in the dark and went to bed.


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