Appalachian Trail: Day 48
Disclaimer: This post is NOT sponsored. All the gear mentioned in this post was purchased by me at retail prices. I have no affiliations with any of the companies or brands mentioned.
Today was another hot day. The elevation wasn't too bad for most of the day. Lots of little ups and downs. Because of that, I leapfrogged with Bard and Glimmer for a while.
The climb down to Laurel Falls was steep and very rocky. Most of it was rock steps. But the view of the falls was worth the climb down.
Bard and Glimmer caught up while I was taking a break there and we discussed some plans. They decided that they were going to take the 1 mile blue blaze into town and shuttle to the hostel from there. That probably would have been the smart idea, but I decided I was going to hike to the hostel.
So, I set off and continued hiking. The challenge, which is why doing the shuttling would have been the smart idea, was after the fork where that blue blaze trail was at, the AT goes up and over a steep climb.
The mountain is called Ponds Flats. It neither had a pond nor was it flat. It was about 1500 ft of elevation gain over about 2.5 miles and then about the same back down. I did make it up and over the mountain and hiked into Boots Off as planned.
The problem is I got there shortly after 6 PM which is when the free shuttle to town left, so I missed the shuttle. This means I'll have to pay for a shuttle into town in the morning and had to go with an expensive frozen pizza from the hostel for dinner.