Day 2

Location: Justuce Creek
Miles hiked today: 11
Miles from Springer: 13.8
Miles from Katahdin: 2,162.4
Elevation: 2,550
Temperature: 50

I’ve adopted Powder River as a trail name! I’ve had several people tell me they really like it, and just as many get kind of a confused look on their face. It is a long story to explain so I just started telling people it means “get ‘er done” in Wyomingese and they seem to nod their head approvingly.

Today was a really great hike. It was cool all day, and for most of the day we hiked through the middle of a cloud. Thankfully it didn’t rain, but because of all the condensation there were a lot of drops falling from the trees. The low cloud cover is still there as I go to bed, but there is a rumor that it is supposed to be 72 degrees and sunny tomorrow. I met a lot of people today who seemed close to quitting. There were quite a few who were really struggling at 3 to 4 miles per day. There was one guy on the approach trail yesterday who seemed to be carrying about 80 pounds, and had a 6 pound tent dangling from the waistbelt that was hitting him on the knee with every step. He was also wearing jeans, which are bad news because cotton can give you hypothermia when its wet.

I climbed 3 mountains today and still feel pretty good; Hawk Mountain, Sassafras Mountain and Justuce Mountain. By the way that is no misspelling, that’s really how they spell justice down here. But I guess that kind of makes sense given that this is the deep south, and they’ve always had a problem with justice anyhow…

Oops, did I just say that? Well hopefully none of my southern readers will be so offended as to cancel their readership. =)

Tomorrow, if I put in a really really big day I can reach civilization at Neels Gap. But probably not, because its 17 miles away. That puts the nearest cheeseburger 2 days away.

Map