Day 95

Belden to campsite - 11 miles

Total - 1299.5 miles

Woke up to the sound of the camp host annoying us about paying again at 6:30am. I initially was in such a good mood giggling with Klara about how my toothbrush broke again, but that quickly got shut down by the boys sonde they are not morning people. We slowly packed up after hangry arguing with one another, when a helicopter flew by wirh two men hanging from a long cord below it. They were apparently fixing electrical lines which we got to see when Marc dropped us off at the Belden store. They flew out an entire electrical pole with some lines still attached. Truly crazy. We then hung out all day in Belden which is a shit hole to begin with. One of the workers looked like she was on meth the entire time we were there. We waited around charging our devices, hoping for the restaurant to open so we could finally get a meal. We did hour shifts watching the outlet as people have reported stuff getting stolen when not supervised. I took first shift before heading to the water, sitting in a chair, feet in the water, playing stupid rock games with rocklicker all of which were my idea. Finally the store opened and we sat down for a double decker, hiker friendly burger. I was a mess. No one told me I had mustard on my face. No good friends around here. I did have ketchup all over my hands though making me look like a baby who misses their mouth and only uses their hands to eat. We got ice cream before heading out to swim and cool off. Great spot to swim as it was just deep enough and cool enough to spend a good amount of time in it. I then wrote my blog, which I’m writing a day behind by accident as we keep hitting towns and I am uninspired in towns. Especially in Belden. Caleb fell asleep in the sand looking truly European. It was a great sight but too intimate to take a picture of. I continued my rock games wirh rocklicker in the mean time. Eventually, Caleb woke up and said let’s get moving. We ended up leaving at 5:30pm to try an attempt 10 miles after changing the plan a million times like usual. The first mile and a half were a breeze: level, in the shade, and cool. Immediately after it got so much worse. Sweat dripped down my nose into my mouth as we started the climb of 5,000 feet over 8 miles. I slowly trekked my way up behind both guys before catching up to Ben from Boston at a water source where I passed him. Rocklicker didn’t come as he’s trying to recover from his injury that he acquired doing 70+ miles the past two days. I realized wirh 6 miles to go that I needed to pick up the pace if I didn’t want to get to camp at 10pm. I’ve never night hiked this late before or just in the dark. Morning doesn’t count as it is getting lighter but when light turns to dark it gets a lil more scary especially hiking alone. I kicked it into third gear to try and make the last 6 miles go quicker. I was cruising after I grabbed another liter of water and crossing a very narrow log before it hit 9pm. I ended up starting with my phone flashlight before switching to the headlamp. It’s a lil creepy hiking through a burn zone with overgrown bushes trying not to trip all while busting your ass to get up all the elevation that I did. I would pass streams with fat frogs hoping around which I didn’t want to step on and squish to death. I started to look behind me just to make sure a bear or cougar wasn’t stalking me. I saw nothing and it was just paranoia. I was about 0.8 out when I got lost for a lil which was scary trying to find the trail again but it really was only 5 minutes of my life. I got a text from Caleb stating there were no campsites where we planned on camping and I had to push 0.4 more which I wasn’t thrilled about as I didn’t want to be hiking in the night any longer. Truly never want to do that again. Mornings all the way. I will say though it made the uphill seem WAY easier as I couldn’t see that far ahead of me so I would just run up the hills hoping it would end sooner than later. Also the stars were gorgeous out. Finally I reached Caleb and immediately started setting up. For a quick dinner I had the rest of my peach rings and life savors. I gave Caleb two peanut butter and jelly tortillas so he wouldn’t have to cook. I forgot to mention this but right before we left Caleb realized he lost his water filter. After crossing the stream at 0.8 from original camp I thought about stopping at this one campsite but I knew I had to keep pushing as I wasn’t ready to camp alone on trail yet especially since I said I was going all the way to the campsite and not stopping short. I forgot that he had lost his water filter and he had no water left so I’m glad it was just a passing thought as it would’ve left him stranded. We then headed to bed tired after an 11 mile push late at night.