Walnut Mountain Shelter to Hot Springs - AT Day 2

Day two started out great. It didn't suck until later. We woke up in the shelter, dry despite the night's downpour, and I miraculously felt well-rested despite not really sleeping very well. I made instant oatmeal and hot tea for breakfast, laced up my boots and off we went. We had originally planned on doing around nine miles, but the people we stayed with were all headed past the next shelter to Hot Springs, a town, to eat a real meal and sleep in a real bed, so Jill and I decided 13 miles couldn't be that bad. Besides, from the campsite we had one steep climb up to about 5000 feet, and then it was about 3000 feet downhill to town. Downhill! That sounded easy! We set out optimistic. Look how smiley Jill is!

We learned a lot of things on this trip that will make my next hike easier. One of these is to pack a HELL OF A LOT LESS than you think you need. Another is that downhill is just as hard as uphill. And sometimes it's worse. The climb up to Bluff Mountain, the highest point of the day, was hard. And then it WAS all downhill. And the downhill sucked.

This attractive photo was taken with 6.6 miles to go. We did figure out that the trekking poles we saw other people with were not just for old people and cripples, so me and Jill each found ourselves two sticks to use. Not quite as nice as the real deal, but they made a huge difference climbing hills, and helped absorb some of the shock going downhill. Trekking poles are on my list of things to buy before hiking trip number two.
Although the hike itself felt brutal, we saw some cool things along the way. This bear print was in the mud near a spring where we stopped for water. It kind of freaked me out, but it was so perfect I figured I should take a picture of it.

I'd been making an effort to talk a lot, or to sing when me and Jill weren't talking, so as not to come upon any bears unawares. Some people wear a bell for the same purpose, but that just seemed really obnoxious. Although, really, my singing got pretty obnoxious. Especially when I thought I heard a noise in the bushes, and started singing louder and louder. The bear track prompted a substantial uptick in the amount of obnoxious singing.

On the gentler side of nature, there was a big luna moth chilling on the side of the trail at one point. So beautiful!!
Eventually we rounded the far side of the mountain, and could hear the town in the valley below. We could hear it for an agonizingly long time before seeing it, and we could see it for an agonizingly long time before actually getting down off the mountain and walking into it. To make sure I felt as utterly depleted as possible before getting to our destination, an hour or so before we actually got to town, it started raining. Jill was doing better than me, and was a good bit ahead by the time I staggered down the mountain, soaking wet from rain and sweat, exhausted, with my feet hurting more than they ever had.

It was almost 8:00 by the time we sat down in a diner to eat. We ate quickly, then walked up the hill to Elmer's, a kind of bed and breakfast for hikers, where Jill and I got a room, a real bed, and a shower. I felt kind of pathetic being as excited as I was about a bed and a shower when I'd had a shower and woken up in a bed only the day before. But still. For our first time backpacking ever, 13 miles in one shot was kind of ambitious. I was glad for a bed, and I slept like a baby.

We left a lot of food behind at Elmer's for other hikers to grab if they wanted. I sadly abandoned two big ziplocs of homemade granola I'd made two days before. The weight of the left-behind food was significant though, and I was optimistic that the next day's hike would be easier with a somewhat lighter pack.