Day 130

I was awoken at 1:34 AM to sound of thunder. I quickly turned off airplane mode on my phone and checked the radar to see a massive storm forming and coming right for me and it shows a lot of red for heavy rain. It’s been a while since I’ve been hit with something really strong like that. So I went to close up my vestibule doors and button down the hatches when I was mesmerized by the fireflies. They were twinkling all around my tent at twilight but now they seemed to all be in the trees and it I just paused to look at it. I wish I could have gotten it on camera but it’s way too dark. It was magical to see all the trees full of twinkling lights. The lightning flashes brought me back to reality and I went back to closing up the tent and zipping everything up ready to get soaked. Even though I pitch my Zpacks Duplex higher now that gives me a taller bathtub floor and should protect more against splash back, I still had a lot of water splashing on the packed ground this campground is full of and felt like I was being sneezed on constantly. Everything in the tent got a little wet with spray that came through the side mesh. Considering the walls of water that hit this tent in waves, it could have been worse. On another crappy side note, my newer sleeping pad is now deflating just like the last one did. You wake up and it’s half deflated. Sigh! I think it’s the release valve that’s leaking.

After packing up all my wet stuff, I walked off trail to Bill Bridge and the general store for a small resupply, refill my water bottles, charge my battery banks and eat. They only had stuff to put in a microwave but it’s all calories. The owners were SO nice there too! After taking the blue trail back to where I got off, I continued on and at some point, my damn Garmin watch freaked out and reset stopping my tracking. I missed about .8 miles before I realized it and had to start a 2nd track. I hate when that happens. The rest of the day was rough! There were some really tough climbs, most likely because it was extremely humid and muggy. I was sweating bullets! Luckily, water sources were good again so I didn’t have any problems running out of water. I finally found a massive amount of “chicken of the woods,” which is a mushroom that you can slice and sauté it and it’s supposed to taste like chicken. Today’s mileage was only 8.7 official AT miles with additional for the walk off trail but I don’t care. It was after 3pm when I got to the shelter where I pitched my tent to start drying things out. With how hot it was, I’m fine with the short day. I’ll try to make it up tomorrow.