Day 273

Day 273 (AT 77): 17 miles

What a stinker of a day. I overslept a few hours and didn’t get moving until 9. Even after that I’m not sure I was really moving. At 4 I checked my mileage and had only covered 10 miles. At that moment I accepted the day as a loss. It was pretty tough terrain but I just gotta be better. I knew coming back to the AT would be a hard adjustment mentally to being okay with lower mileages cause of the harder trail but sub 20 is too low for me to feel good. I hope this doesn’t become a habit but we’ll see with the terrain.

In the middle of the day I took a break at a shelter and laid down for a bit to give my back a good cracking. As I was laying there I was so content and tired I really wanted to fall asleep. But that’s not in the schedule so I had to get up and get rolling.

I had my first Ford today. It wasn’t deep or dangerous but it was wide and the water was coolllddd. There was a pair of boots somebody left at the river which you could use instead of walking barefoot. It worked out nicely that somebody crossed the opposite way just as I got there and brought the shoes to my side of the river.

While hiking after dark I saw a set of eyes and as I got closer I realized they were taller than me and saw it was a moose. We had a staredown for a bit. I started telling him how time is a flat circle and after that bit ran out I discussed with him how it might be time to shift his portfolio to value and he didn’t want to hear any of that and took off.

Had a Little Rock scramble up to A mountain just before I got to the shelter for the night.

Song of the day: real friends-Kanye West