| Mile | 1006.3 |
| Miles Since Last Update | 18.2 |
| Day | 82 |
Passed 1000 miles today which was cool. Rest of the day was not quite as cool.
8 miles to the rollercoaster was pretty smooth, and then it started. The elevation change isn’t super taxing all things considered. 3-400 up, 3-400 down, repeat. Totally doable and honestly preferable to some of the earlier 800+ ft up climbs. It is chock full of the nastiest rocks I’ve seen tho, and it is very poorly blazed and littered with side trails that are so easy to start down unknowingly. So it becomes a battle of looking down to make sure a rock isn’t about to murder me, while also checking where I’m going to make sure I’m not about to burn 30 minutes on some other trail. In the end I probably fell about 3 times, and got lost for easily 40+ minutes of the day. Far from the worst section of the trail I’ve encountered, but definitely not fun.
Stopped midway thru the coaster at Bear’s Den hostel, which is right off the trail (and also made of rocks). The final 0.5 mile climb up here felt like it took hours though.
It’s a really cool and historic building with a lot of neat stuff inside.
Big Bird and Van Gogh are here too, so I’ve been chatting with them most of the evening, which has been great. A bunch of section hikers are here too, so it is a little crowded.
Tomorrow is just 14 to a gap, where I’m being picked up for dinner/resupply. Harper’s is just 4 miles past that but it looks like it kind of sucks for resupply so I’m taking advantage of the offer.