McAfee Hikes

Date Written: 8/08/2024 | AT Mile 51.8 | Day Total: 13.6 miles | Gain: 936 ft

This morning awakening squirrels running through the campsite. These are not you typical Ohio squirrels, they are significantly thinner and they chirp a lot. Nevertheless I sleep pretty well. These long hard days are making it easy to fall asleep.

Ian, is an early riser as well as I am. As soon as we started dwindling around camp these small green pinecones started fall of the trees and smacking the metal roof of the shelter. It was really loud and the shelter roof had hundreds of dents from them. When I was eating breakfast under the shelter and I jumped when an extremely loud pinecone struck the roof.

While the pinecones woke everyone up from their nights rest I did the now usual. Dry inside of tent from condensation, roll up and deflate the sleeping pad and pillow, bring down my food from the bear hang and pocket snacks for the day, eat breakfast, pack up tent, tape up any blisters, and more…

We are shooting for beautiful campsite that has good service, enough to send a picture and get messages. Noah stayed here last time and also remembered swimming in the lake.

We started the day with Ian but he quickly went ahead of us, he seems to move and says he eats lunch while walking. The first few hundred steps bring out any soreness from yesterday and slowly dull away as we walk further. I’ve still got a blister on both my pinky toes but they have thankfully not ruptured yet.

Miles are starting to catch up to everyone, lots of sore feet, legs and shoulders from the food weight. The packs are getting lighter everyday with the loss of food but soreness still lingers.

Groups camps seems to be pretty common in the 100MW. We passed another group of 6ish boys heading to Katahdin. One of the guys was cradling a log, probably 10lbs and said he been carrying it for 50-60 miles. He plans to take it all the way to Katahdin. We didn’t break the news to him but the rangers at Baxter won’t let the log in because it could contain parasites that they don’t want in the park. Another kid further back was was also carrying two 6ft long skinny sticks and planned to make a skit video of lightsabers with them…

About midday today we passed a nobo hiker that Noah had recognized from his spring break trip. He previously meet her around a campsite near Amicalola Falls and gave his hangtag to her because the visitor center was closed when she left. It’s crazy to think back to our spring break and realize how long ago it seems, crazy how much time goes by during a thru hikes.

Breaks, like the name implies, break up the day and give us something to look forward to. The breaks are also commonly associated with eating food and that’s always a motivator. We took a nice one at the entrance to Nahmakanta lean-to. We counted the first 500 steps after this break and it was awful entertainment.

A few miles later we ate lunch on some logs that were stacked on the side of the trail. I had two nutella, peanut butter, and banana chip wraps along with some trail mix. Everyone’s pretty tired, chafing, blistered, sore, etc but we’re trying to keep high spirits.

Cold water is a luxury and today we passed a super cool artisan spring named Potaywadjo. The spring was pushing water up through the earth and sand at a faster than expected rate because the stream leading off it was flowing very well. It was super clear and yummy!

The next few miles we flew all the way to the campsite. We were all ready to call someplace homebase for the night. Bugs are definitely getting a little worse and rumor has it that there’s an also tropical storm coming our way and dumping a ton of rain on us for the next day or to.

Once at camp we pitched up tents and went down to the lake for a quick swim. This is the second day in a row that we’ve jumped in a lake.

I came back to a squirrel activity eating the contents of my trail mix bag. It had chewed multiple holes through the plastic bag and began collecting the almonds and walnuts. As cute as they look they are still little pests… I will never look at one the same.

I ate some “baked potato” dinner down by the lake. Don’t worry, I brought all my food with me to keep the squirrels away.

We’re expecting rain late tonight. Two Loons are calling to each other across the lake was we drift to sleep.