Kevin's AT Thru Hike

Day 49, Wednesday, 5/4 – Martin and I stayed at the alpaca farm again last night, while the parents stayed at the B&B in Marion. They planned to pick us up after they had breakfast, so Martin and I had a leisurely morning at the farm.

We hung out in the bunkhouse with Bebop who is zeroing at the farm. Bebop had a work-for-stay arrangement with the farm, so Martin and I were chatting with her as she was doing laundry.

Bepop is also blogging her adventure via WordPress. She is the only other hiker that I have come across that is also blogging. It seems that most hikers share their adventure on YouTube, Instagram, or Facebook.

We chatted about a lot of things, but what stuck out from our conversation was the perception of time on the trail. We agreed that time on the trail seems to pass by faster as the days go by. For example, the most recent 100 miles seemed to go by a lot faster than the first 100 miles. She explained that that’s because each additional mile hiked is a smaller percentage of the total distance hiked.

After breakfast, Mom and Dad drove Martin and I to mile 556, and we hiked SOBO (south bound) the 10 miles back to the alpaca farm.

Hiking SOBO is interesting because all the thru hikers are hiking NOBO. Martin and I crossed paths with so many hikers throughout the day. To name a few, we ran into Bubbles, Jeff, Dharma, Kronos, Silver Back, Ketchup, Happy Camper, Parkour, Jetpack, and Orlando. There’s always some amount of interaction when you come across another hiker. Martin had a funny analogy about hiking SOBO. He said it reminded him of a high school hallway between classes; the interactions are typically short and very enthusiastic.

When we walked past Happy Camper, I mistook her for Tear Drop. She, however, remembered my name. I felt bad for a while for getting her name wrong. I hate making that mistake. I’m usually pretty good with names.

Running into all the hikers today led us to another interesting thought about hiking NOBO. When I’m hiking NOBO, I’ll go a long time without seeing another hiker, sometimes half the day. But with how many hikers are out here, I may just be a half mile away from hikers moving the same pace as me in the same direction. I think more trails should have recommended directions. The trails won’t feel as crowded when everyone is hiking the same direction.

The hike was beautiful today. There were more signs of Spring. The Rhododendrons are about to be in bloom. The best part of hiking NOBO is that I will be following Spring North. Hopefully this means that the weather stays nice longer and flowers bloom over a longer period of time. I say this knowing that the summer heat will certainly catch up with me.

I’m also officially 1/4 of the way through the hike! That’s half way to half way.

At the end of the hike, the parents picked up Martin and me. We went straight to a pizza joint in Marion. After pizza, we all went to the Collins House B&B. The parents have been staying at the B&B for the past 3 nights. We all thought it made sense to spend the last night together at the same place so we could play cards together and have breakfast in the morning.

After everyone had showered, we played our favorite card game, Oh Hell. It’s a very fun (and frustrating) trick-taking card game. I recommend it for anyone with 3 friends, 30 minutes of free time, and a deck of cards! I didn’t win tonight, but it was close. But I beat Martin, and that’s what really matters.