Kevin's AT Thru Hike

Day 64, Thursday, 5/19 – I woke up this morning feeling better than I thought I would. So, against my better judgement, I decided to hike out today.

Here’s a photo of Middle Creek Campground!

We were all moving very slow this morning, so we didn’t end up getting back on trail until about 11:30am. As soon as we got shuttled back to the trail head, Beverages & Brick showed up with trail magic. They were celebrating his 30th birthday! I had a donut, a Gatorade, and packed out some candy. I would have liked to have stayed longer, but I felt pressure to get hiking. Our original plan was to hike 17 miles, and we were getting a real late start.

The hiking was tough today. It’s getting hot out now, I didn’t feel like I could take a deep breath, and I was really tired. I also have a gnarly cough. I’m fairly convinced I got Covid again. I had it in late December, which wasn’t even five months ago. Well whatever it is, it doesn’t appear that the symptoms are bad enough to stop me from hiking. It’s also not the worst place to get sick. I’m spending most of my time outside, socially distanced, and away from the most at-risk individuals.

The fatigue really set in 9 miles into the hike. There was a shelter that I really wanted to take a nap at. I was hiking with Dillan and Birthday Sandwich who encouraged me to continue on. I’m glad they did, I’m not sure that I would have continued hiking after a mid-afternoon nap.

Throughout the hike, we were playing leap frog with Brad. “Playing leap frog” is when you repeated pass a hiker, and then get passed up by that same hiker later. Well, Brad caught up with us near the trail to Apple Orchard Falls, and asked if we had seen all the rattle snakes along the trail. He said he had seen 3. Because none of us had seen them, I was skeptical at first, but he showed me a few videos of the rattle snakes. I need to get better a spotting them, because they were close enough to the trail that I could have stepped on them.

We got to the Apple Orchard Mountain, and came across a giant soccer ball looking structure. I’m guessing it’s another air traffic control facility.

Dillan, Birthday Sandwich, and I then hiked past the “Guillotine” which is a large bolder, over the trail, that is wedged between two larger boulders. Dillan and Birthday Sandwich wanted to sit on it. I volunteered to be the photographer.

I ended up hiking 14 miles to Thunder Hill Shelter (mile 772). The shelter was appropriately named, all evening there was thunder and lightning. The lightning was off in the distance, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it ends up storming overnight.

One of the first things I did when I got to camp was cook dinner. I’ve really been hooked on Annie’s macaroni and cheese. The dinner hit the spot, but there’s always a bit of cleanup. I turned the stove back on to heat up some water. Almost immediately, the fuel can lit on fire at the connection between the fuel can and the stove. Instinctively, I turned the stove off. Unfortunately, turning off the stove didn’t fix the problem because the fuel was bypassing the stove. Dillan picked up the fireball and got it to a safe location. There really wasn’t anything else to do but let it burn out.

So here’s what I think happened. The threads on the fuel can had rusted a bit. When I was screwing the stove onto the fuel can, the rust may have prevented me from screwing the parts together all the way. There is a small rubber gasket in the stove that should come into contact with the fuel can. If it wasn’t tightened all the way, as a result of the rusty threads, fuel would escape around the rubber gasket.

After the dinner fiasco, we heard some excitement from someone tenting near the shelter. All I heard was “bear.” I went to investigate with Dillan, and sure enough, there was a bear hanging out at the shelter. I’m not particularly worried about bears on the AT because there aren’t grizzlies. But, I’m more concerned about a bear that comes to a shelter than a bear I might come across on trail. A shelter bear knows there are humans present, and has come to eat human food anyway.

I decided to sleep in the shelter tonight. This will be the first time sleeping in a shelter since Partnership Shelter on 4/30. We are planning on getting an early start to beat-the-heat, so it will help if I don’t have to break down the hammock and tarp in the morning.