My Knees Hurt! 

Saturday July 15, 2017 

Stealth camping @ 1955.3 12.4 miles

Total mileage 931.8

Today was a hard day for me and I was questioning myself again. When I left the hostel this morning the sky was gray but there wasn’t a chance of rain until later this afternoon. As we got closer to my drop off point it was very foggy. Like a wet mist. And the shuttle driver kept having to use her windshield wipers to be able to see. 

As I started my 3 mile climb up Old Blue Mountain it almost seemed like it was raining. There was a lot of water dripping off the trees and the trail was a mud bog! My socks and shoes were soon wet and I was grumpy. I was having to find ways around or through mud bogs all day long. This really gets to you mentally and it is tiring. My shoes are covered in mud my legs are covered in mud. I even have mud all around my nail beds on my toes. 

After having a day off and two days of slackpacking my feet and knees were not happy when I started out with my pack this morning and as the day progressed it just got worse. 

I don’t have any photos of the views from atop Old Blue Mountain it was a total white out up there. But I did get some views later in the day. 

I wanted to stop early today and just have a short day but I am trying to get to town tomorrow where Jim has sent me a food resupply. I didn’t have him send one to my last stop because I still had some food and I could resupply in Andover. I just didn’t realize how small of a town Andover was the their market was the size of a jiffy store back home. So the food I ate at the last stop really didn’t have the nutrition that I wanted. 

The 12 miles that I did today was a real push. I just wanted to be done and lay down. I finely made it to my destination at 4 pm. I am stealth camping alone tonight. I think this may be the first night since starting the trail that I am camping alone. 

The sun did come out around 2:30 for a short while. Then the rain started about 4:40. It rained just enough to get things wet then stopped. Hopefully that will be the end of it for this evening and my tent will be dry in the morning. One can hope.