This was the best day so far for me. I woke up pretty early but I was moving really slowly, hoping August would go ahead without me. 3 hours later I was still at camp and he was still waiting but I could tell he was getting frustrated. I couldn’t drag it out any longer so I finally left around 10:30. He followed. We walked the blue blaze back to the trail and I let him get ahead a bit and then said I had to re-tie my shoes so he could go ahead. Again he tried to wait but I told him again to just go on. He did and I waited a bit so he’d get a head start. I felt so relieved. I hiked on and ran into Pineapple and Daniel taking a break, they’d been waiting for me to catch up. We hiked together. Daniel went a bit ahead of us, we eventually caught up to him when he was sitting with someone new taking a break. It was another Brian from Texas. He offered to hike with Daniel since he was having a tough time and told us we could go ahead.

We had a nice time hiking together and I felt so much better. We ran into a group we recognized from Hawk Mountain shelter and had lunch with them. This ended up being the group I’d hike with for awhile. I told the only other girl in the group, Forward, about my weird situation and she immediately said I’d camp with them that night. I hiked with Forward, Tennessee, Veg, Mike, and Pineapple. We finally had an intimidating climb this day and I realized how difficult the uphills are while carrying a 30 lb pack.

We stayed at Gooch Gap and it was a great time. There were so many people there, at least 25-30 of us. August avoided me, he took the hint. We all hung out in the shelter and I spent some time with Veg and Pineapple and a guy called Beast who was hiking super fast. I cooked dinner by myself at my tent and enjoyed some alone time. Forward and I had fun camping next to each other. Now I was starting to feel really comfortable.