Day 1, June 30, 14 miles.

I was pleasantly surprised when I got up this morning, after a pretty good night’s sleep and it wasn’t raining. I returned the rental car, got a ride to the point on the trail where I stopped last year, and off I went. The weather was cool. It seemed a perfect day for hiking. I was down in the valley so I immediately had a climb right out of the gate. It was about a 3 mile climb with a pretty long decent and then another pretty good climb. At about mile 4, the sky started spitting rain. It rained the rest of the hike. The trail was extremely muddy, rocky and wet. I got slapped many times in the face by wet brush. It was actually a pretty fun day. When you have no choice but walk in the rain and slosh in the mud, it kind of makes you feel like a kid again.

I only saw one other hiker on the trail today, Light Horse, who came up on me at about mile 11, stopped to chat a second, and quickly left me in his dust. He was a young guy who was a thru-hiker.

When I got to the shelter no one else was here, but within about 15 minutes another young thru-hiker, Five, came in and by the time I retreated to my tent, there were 2 others that had arrived. I’m in my tent, Five is in the shelter, Bear is hammocking, and the other guy is tenting also. Five says he’s a ferocious snorer so I’m happy to be in my tent far away from him.

Rain, mud, roots and rocks–it was a great day!