Day 25 - American Hot, Please

Miles Today - 21.1
Location - Curly Maple Gap Shelter
Date - May 7

Lots of miles today. I was excited. I spent the morning flip flipping between Squirrel and White Rabbit as we passed babbling brooks and...simpering streams? Eh.

The good weather continued to hold. Which was now a problem. Squirrel had described the night before a trip to a Thai restaurant. "It comes spicy, right?" The waitress paused. "Do you want it American spicy, or Thai spicy?" Today was Thai hot. I believe I clearly ordered American hot.

We met Kenny at No Business shelter for lunch. There was noticeably no privy. No business allowed.

The trail to Erwin was mostly downhill, and fairly low grade. But it was hot. Hoooot. Did I mention the heat? Pulling into the outfitters I immediately got a vending machine soda and guzzled it. Then I got another and nursed it. Ice cold drinks, so nice.

While charging my phone and resupplying on snacks for the next day (because I had enough but like to pig out when possible) I had to fight off people trying to convince me to stay in Erwin and swim in the river. Staying strong, I pulled myself away after only a half hour.

There were only 5 miles left, and they were low grade mostly, but it was just so hot. A few times I just had to stop to pull my shirt off and skulk in the shade. When I reached the shelter I flopped and lay in a puddle of sweat for a bit. Aw...

I met CAT, a Taiwanese, Chinese, American whose shelter logs I had been reading for weeks. We were joined later by Atlas, a French Canadian, and Yellow Beard, who had a terrible accident in the wind to earn his trail name. After spending an embarrassing amount of time trying to hang a bear bag (only to have everyone else just hang in the shelter!) Rose and I plotted out the next week.

After a brief incident with a spider who did not want to die encroaching on Rose's bag, I retired to bed. Tomorrow is a 20 with a single real mountain, so it should be mostly cruising. Fingers crossed it cools down a bit though, or I may have to ooze into the hostel.