Kevin's AT Thru Hike

Day 65, Friday, 5/20 – Dillan, Birthday Sandwich and I all woke up at 5:00am, and were hiking by 5:30am. We got up early because the forecast was showing 95 degree weather during the afternoon. We ended up hiking 15 miles by noon.

Besides a mild headache, the morning hike was nice today. There was more downhill than uphill today, and the trail was gentle. I didn’t feel short of breath like I did yesterday, but yesterdays hike had much more ascent than today’s hike.

I hiked with Lost Wheels towards the end of the hike today. She offered to give Dillan, Birthday Sandwich and myself a ride into Glasgow. We got dropped off at Scottos, which is an Italian restaurant in town. I could tell that they were used to hikers because they had a separate seating area just for hikers called the “Hikers Den.” We all ate a fairly huge meal and enjoyed the air conditioning.

Birthday Sandwich was feeling tired after the huge meal, so took a nap outside the front of the restaurant. Only along the AT could a person get away with sleeping at the door to the restaurant. There’s a term frequently used on the AT called “Hiker Trash.” Believe it or not, it’s more of a positive term than a negative term. It’s used to describe a person acting in a way that only someone on a thru hike would act. Birthday Sandwich, passed out on his pack, outside the front door of Scottos is a perfect example of Hiker Trash.

There was a grocery store across the street from Scottos. We all walked over and did our food resupply. I picked up some allergy medicine at the grocery store. I feel a whole lot better after having taken allergy medication. I don’t know if I’m sick or what, but I certainly have allergies, and that medicine alleviated some symptoms.

Dillan, Birthday Sandwich, and I were repacking our packs on a picnic table outside the grocery store, when Dillan offered to give me a shakedown. A shakedown is when you go through all of your items and determine where you can shave some weight. Dillan has an ultralight pack, his base weight is 7lbs, so I value his opinion (base weight is pack weight without food and water). I definitely got some good recommendations and will be sending home some odds and ends.

We were intentionally killing time to avoid hiking in the heat of the day. We hung out long enough that we were ready for another meal at Scottos. We ate dinner at Scottos and then checked out the AT shelter in town.

Glasgow has a free shelter in town specifically for AT hikers. The shelter even has showers. I love Glasgow. This is definitely one of the friendliest towns to thru hikers.

It was just before 7pm when we were all finally ready to get back to trail. We got to the road and put up our thumbs. We only had to wait 10 minutes or so to catch a hitch back to the trail.

We got back on trail at 7:00pm, and the temperatures were still in the 90s. We ended up hiking another 5 miles which included 2,500 ft of ascent. It was after 9pm by the time we made it to Big Rocky Row Cliffs (mile 792). It was well past dark by the time we got to camp, so we decided to cowboy camp again tonight.