Miles: 427.7 | What starts as a modest mileage plan turns into my biggest push yet. A spontaneous decision sends us over Pond Mountain, burning daylight, water, and every last reserve — and straight into a night hike. Thirsty, limping, and running on pure will, I follow my headlamp toward warmth, pizza, and a real bed. When the Boots Off Hostel sign finally appears, it feels like a reward earned the hard way.
I woke up to a lot of condensation in my tent. I set it up hastily the night before and definitely didn’t ventilate properly considering I was camping in a valley next to a stream... I dried it as best as I could. I got up at 9am and went to find a tree to dig a hole under first thing. When I came back I got the bear bags down. We packed up quietly. Originally, we planned to hike about 15 miles on this day. I looked at the guidebook again, longing for a bed that was truly warm. Even with the warm weather the night before, my sleeping pad still sapped a lot of the heat from my body.
As we put on our packs and were about to leave, Dynasty showed up on the trail! I have been leapfrogging Dynasty nearly every day since Fontana. He was a cool guy. An older hiker who was tenacious and made some good miles! I was always excited to see Dynasty. He walked with us for a bit until we hit a steep incline. The day shaped up to be beautiful and sunny.
As Maverick and I walked through a meadow with an old falling down log cabin I realized something. Tomorrow we had planned to do only 5 miles into the hostel in Hampton. If we made it there tonight I could still take a zero tomorrow, which I wasn’t planning on taking, and Maverick could take two zeros. We thought about it without looking at the elevation profile. “It’s only five miles!” We agreed. Might as well! We called the hostel to make sure they had room. They did! Excited and exhausted we pushed on.
We walked through the Pond Mountain Wilderness: across a cool river, along some rock ledges, past a waterfall, and to Pond Mountain itself.
We didn’t realize how big it was... We hiked hard to the top, squeezing every last ounce of energy out of ourselves. Heavy breath and sore muscles, we stopped part way up the mountain. I made the mistake of looking at Guthook which can tell you by GPS where you are.
We were barely halfway up and had thought we were way further. We drank the last of our water. The next mile and a half to the spring at the top of the mountain seemed to take forever. I didn’t even care that we had summoned the mountain because I was so thirsty.
As we got water from the muddy spring at the top the sun went down all the way. I pulled out my headlamp and realized, for the first time, that it may be a little bit too dim for night hiking. We cruised down the mountain as fast as we could toward our warm beds!
We got to the hostel around 9:30pm and that sign looked like heaven. By the time we got there my hip was numb, I was exhausted, and I couldn’t walk without a limp.
We checked in with the hostel owner and split a tiny cabin. We showered in their super cool bucket showers before bed. They sold us a two frozen pizzas to eat. We heated them up in the overnight in the Hiker kitchen. I also had a red Powerade. That was the most satisfying drink I had ever had. They brought my packages with my new gear out and I opened all of them!
I slept solidly through the night in my warm bunk.
1. 20+ miles. The biggest day yet.
2. PIZZAAAAA + Powerade
3. SHOWER + WARM BED