Day 113: AT Class of 2019/ Rock Spring

Miles Hiked: 28.5

Total Milage: 1928.8

Today I was really looking forward to seeing my friend Cocoa on trail! I hiked a little bit of the AT with her in 2019. I sent her an inreach message last night and found out that we camped 20 miles apart from each other. The day started out mostly downhill and I found some massive patches of raspberries on the way! I took a short break at a trailhead with a nice picnic table. I was saving the long break for when I got to see my friend! When we finally did meet up it was almost halfway through both of our days. We sat and chatted on the side of the trail for almost an hour. She is hiking with her sister and cousin so it was awesome to meet them too. We talked a lot about our experiences hiking the CDT as our second trail and what each other had to look forward to. I was so happy to chat with some friends!

Afterwards I continued up my climb and the day was extremely hot with little water to be found anywhere. My stomach was absolutely killing me on the climb up so I had to sit down multiple times because it hurt so bad. I’m not sure what’s going on but I’ve been having digestive issues for a while in trail now and it’s not fun especially when I’m try to eat so much food everyday and I have to dig a hole every time I go to the bathroom. Eventually I made it to the spring at the top of the climb but it was way later than expected. I didn’t care. I was so tired. I was just glad the last five miles to camp were all downhill. At the spring I made some couscous for dinner and got to talk to a SOBO named “Little Buddha” who also hiked the AT in 2019. He has hiked more than any other hiker I’ve personally met including the CDT in 2001 with exclusively paper maps and before much of the trail was built. What a cool person to talk to!

After dinner I hiked downhill to camp. It was late and getting windy. There was service at a view so I called my mom for five minutes even though my phone was about to die. I just wanted to talk to my family so bad today. I got to camp just as it was getting dark. It was a long day!