Day 2

Miles today – 14.2. Total – 14.4 / 2180.9 to go.

Today was a doozy. I am camped out at Justice Creek with 5 others. One is a father and son, the son is thru-hiking and the father is joining for a week. Pretty cool! Planned on doing only 10 today but I am still having a hard time figuring out the symbols on my guide book. So 14 it is.

Last night around 8ish I heard machine gun fire, so that was interesting. Woke up at 7 for another beautiful sunrise, made coffee and oatmeal and me, red and Conrad were out by 9:40. I hiked with red and his dog for most of the day, but lost him about 7 miles in. We weren’t sure on the next place to stay so I ended up going solo the rest of the way. Didn’t see him since. Nice guy though.

The hike started out pretty easy but quickly became a roller coaster of ups and downs. We were near the stream and either mountain laurel or sycamore is growing in abundance, very cool. But the ups and especially the downs started wearing on my left knee. I knew I overdid it today. Going to play it safe and try for 10 tomorrow.. But we’ll see how my body feels.

My campsite, and a controlled burn.

It’s supposed to rain tonight so I got everything under the rainfly, hope it doesn’t keep raining on through the morning!