Day #69-72

May 29 – May 31

Miles Hiked: 828

Miles to Katahdin: 1357.3

The weather finally cooled down a bit and hiking has become pleasant again. It’s been foggy out, so we have to be careful not to slip, but the humidity has brought out a lot of efts and makes the trees look extra green!

We took a shuttle in to Glasgow where we stayed in a shelter right in the center of town! Most of my group has taken to tenting these days, so we pitched our tents just outside of the shelter. Glasgow doesn’t have much going for it, but it’s friendly to hikers and has a post office and Dollar General within walking distance of the shelter. Can’t ask for much more. The people that maintain the shelter also stacked a bunch of firewood nearby, so we (actually, just Muffin Man) built a raging fire and we made s’mores.

The next day we hiked up a mountain and passed the Ottie Cline Powell Memorial. I don’t remember the details, but he was a very young boy who wandered away from school in the early 1900s (or maybe even the 1800s) and became lost in the woods. They didn’t find his body for several months. It’s tradition along the trail to leave an “offering” in these types of spots. I looked for a flower, but the only one in the area was growing from the site where they found his body and I didn’t feel appropriate picking it. I found a small rock instead and placed it on the memorial.

On May 31 we had several trail magic encounters! We were the only hikers on that section of the trail, so some trail maintainers offloaded a bunch of trail magic on us. They gave us all of the apples, bananas, string cheese, and Hershey bars they were carrying. It was a lot of heavy food!! I ate one and a half giant Hershey bars that day. I’m surprised I didn’t get sick. Or just sick of chocolate. My inner fat kid was very happy.

We hiked over some pretty terrain until we reached Hog Camp Gap, an open grassy area near a parking lot. We camped there and soon some hikers named Mother Earth, Indy, and Longhorn joined us. Longhorn had to get off the trail for several days because of severe heel blisters and just got back on that day. It’s amazing how you keep bumping into the same people over and over again. I never know whether someone is way ahead of me, way behind me, or just around the corner!