| Mile | 344.5 |
| Miles Since Last Update | 13.5 |
| Day | 35 |
Kinda slept like crap last night. It was really hot and really windy. Packing up this morning I was barely able to get my hammock open with the amount of wind.
Fairly cruise-y day today. Much needed. Saw preacher again slack packing south bound. He said he doesn’t feel guilty about slacking since he did all these miles last year, but I don’t really understand why he even feels the need to do the miles at all then. Why not just pick up where he left off last year?
Lots of Helene damage on the trail today, but nothing impassable. Pretty wild tho.
Made it to Erwin before 2 which was nice. Chilled at Uncle Johnny’s hostel for a bit while I ordered an Uber to my hotel. Felt kind of bad since the Uber driver drove 30 minutes to pick me up and cart me 10 minutes north, but I really did not want to burn two more hours hauling a pack in the heat.
The nicest hotel in Erwin btw.
The AT is supposed to run thru a bridge across the Nolichucky river right near Uncle Johnny’s but Helene destroyed the bridge so the “official” detour just runs thru Erwin now (last year they had a guy ferrying people across supposedly). I don’t really care that I’m not doing the 5 miles of town walking technically. If there’s one thing I’ve learned out here, it is that 99% of people are cheating miles one way or another. “Hike your own hike”, I guess.
Definitely taking it a notch slower on this next stretch. My mileage is looking a bit dire, especially with the zero tomorrow but oh well, if I fail this, I fail this.