FLT Day 36: Hesse leanto, 21 miles

After a restful sleep in the cabin I set out for a full day of hiking, and in nice weather to top it off.



The 'trail' (notice the blaze on the fallen tree), after a bunch of erosion.


Probably the most significant thing that happened today was a bit of reverse trail magic. Last week I had met two day hikers out on a rainy day. One of them was almost finished with hiking the entire trail. After parting ways with them I soon found a Leki hiking pole on the side of the trail, maybe two miles later. Since it was nicer than my walmart poles, I started carrying and using it.

Today I met a trail maintenance crew of four working on the trail. I started talking to the first two guys, who then yelled back to the rear two that I was a thru hiker. One of the back two was one of the hikers I had met last week. Once I recognized him I offered him the pole. It wasn't his, but the other guys, so he offered to return it for me. Usually thru hikers are on the receiving end of trail magic, so it was nice to surprise another hiker like that.

FLT Day 13: Tower Rd, 19.1 miles

Today was mostly roadwalk, so I took advantage and got an early start. The first few miles were actually trail, updated since Chenango got his maps, so that was a nice addition to the FLT.

For the most part the roads were all back roads. They were still all plowed, but had almost no traffic. The one exception was route 10, which had some traffic but a wide shoulder. The nice thing about route 10 was that Chenango had offered to meet me there and take me into town to resupply. That way I could avoid carrying 8 days worth of food.

It was a quick town stop in Walton. I hit the family dollar for a resupply, and then we used the Mcdonalds wifi to check email and weather. Apparently there is a storm moving in tonight which is supposed to dump 4 inches of snow. Just when it was starting to clear off too.

Given the impending storm I really tried to burn in a few extra miles today to make tomorrow easier. However, by the time I was at Tower rd it was already snowing pretty hard right into my face. At that point I had already almost set up camp underneath an old 18 wheeler on the side of the road, but decided that was a bit conspicuous. As it turned out, right when the storm was getting bad I found a stand of pine trees for the night. Cover from snow and a bit of wind protection. We'll see how tomorrow turns out.

FLT Day 8: Ludlow leanto 15.4 miles

Today I woke to a nice shining sun and actually got my first glimpse of trail. The rain had melted quite a bit of snow, and in places the path was actually showing through.

It was also the first day that I felt like I was actually hiking, rather than just trudging. The trail is pretty wet in a lot of places, so I am still getting soaked.

Probably the best part of the day through was Chenango showing up at one of the road crossings. I had sent him my rough schedule, since I knew he lived in the area. Apparently he had been trying to track me down, but ket missing, either being too late, or from me taking alternate routes. But today we finally connected. He brought some assorted goodies for trail magic and we were able to catch up a bit from the past year and a half since I met him on the Florida trail.

I think we spent a bit too long talking, since I ended up getting caught in a snowstorm at the end of the day.

I ended up at Ludlow leanto, which is a very nice spot overlooking a river. A relatively recent leanto, but I can imagine it being a great summer spot for swimming in the river.

Apparently tomorrow I have several waterfalls to look forward to as well.

Chance encounters

Since I was basically in the middle of San Diego, I decided to stay in a hostel in the area, rather than trying to find an out of the way spot to camp for the night. I ended up at Banana Bungalow Hostel, right on the coast, with nice beach right out the front door.

It was pretty much a standard hostel from my experience, but the coolest part was in the morning as I was about to leave. As I was heading out the door another guy was coming in the door. As he passed by I thought his backpack looked familiar, so I called out to him. It turns out that he was the same guy that I met in Tehachapi, CA, who was hiking the PCT going southbound. We stopped and talked for a bit about what had transpired since we met, and how our trips were going. He had finished up the PCT by Campo, and was taking some time off at the hostel in San Diego to cool off. He also had some plans to buy a boat at one of the marinas, so that could be interesting.