Day 63

Day 63: 29 miles

Another uneventful day of excellent weather. I again did more miles than I wanted to but I should be getting my tent soon even though it looks like shelters become more frequent again after NY and CT. Only thing of note today is that I’m now in Connecticut but I must’ve missed the sign for it.

Continuing yesterday’s theme, onto my shoe routine. Similar to the socks, they get wet everyday and freeze overnight (albeit not lately *knocks on wood*). I loosen up the laces the night before but in the morning they are still frozen so stiff that they are impossible to put on. When I wake up I double layer them in plastic grocery bags and stuff them inside my jacket and/or sleeping bag for my body heat to work on them. I do this while I’m eating or just getting things around for 20-30 minutes and by the time I’m ready to get up they’re usually just loose enough where I can shove my feet into them. They are still not at all flexible and the laces are stiff. But shortly after forcing them on, my feet warm them up enough to be functional normal shoes, although they will dampen my feet as they thaw and become wet again.

And for a feet check, they’re definitely not great but better then I expected by this point. My feet have always been really gross and thru hiking only magnifies that. I do a few small things to try to keep them good enough to not slow me down with pain. Number one is to try to take time to let them dry out. Some days I’ll do this throughout the day, most days not so much cause I just wanna keep moving. But I always dry them out before going to bed. Along with that, I always try to clean them off at the end of the day, get the mud and sock remnants off to stay the slightest of clean. And what I think has helped most of all: Vermont bag balm. It’s like extreme lotion for cow udders in the winter. This was recommended to me and I’m glad it was. I don’t even use it every night, probably 2/3 nights because sometimes at the end of the day I’m tired and just want to scarf down 2,000 calories of peanut butter and go to bed. But when I can I try to put the bag balm on to help my feet recover, and it certainly has had an effect.