Sunrise looked nice through the trees in camp, rays of light shining though the myst from the rain overnight.
I sent Beast a text about my plan for the day (surprised to have signal) and a couple minutes later she came out and said “I’m awake”, so I wandered over to the lean to and we talked about a plan. There are three options for the day: 1) a lean to in 10 miles 2) a lean to in 17 miles 3) a campsite at 12 miles which might not have water, or very slowly flowing water. Between the lean tos there is a mountain range and no water except for possibly at the campsite. 17 miles would mean a rathe large day that she wasn’t sure she could commit to. I don’t like the idea of the campsite at 12 miles because it’s hot and not having water would be really bad, even though there would probably be enough water there. In the middle is Gulf Hagas, a canyon which is mostly off the AT and has a lot of waterfalls. I didn’t mind doing the 10 mile hike, because I could hike the side trails in Gulf Hagas. I also didn’t mind doing the 17 mile hike, but I wanted to know so I could get moving early while it was still rather cool out. We decided to meet near Gulf Hagas and figure it out there.
So I started hiking, went up a hill and then back down. After a couple miles I made it to the pond I should have gone to the night before. I took the walk down to the pond and took a swim in the crystal clear water with nobody around. It felt amazing!
Sadly I did get bitten by a deer tick on my stomach, but at least I noticed it fairly early.
I made it to a river crossing, it was rather wide and very shallow. I took a look to one side and the other and there was no way to hop across so I just went for it with my trail runners on. When I got to the other side a hiker told me “I like the way you just dove in there” haha in New Zealand this crossing wouldn’t even have been worthy of mention.
I checked out a section of old growth pines, I though I’d wait for beast there, but the mosquitoes were too aggressive, so I went to look for another place. I got off the AT onto the Gulf Hagas rim trail, crossed a stream and sat down by a small waterfall to eat lunch, dry my socks and wait.
I’m not positive how much time passed, it must have been an hour, I wasn’t complaining, I dipped in the stream and looked at the trail ahead and some of the trails on the gulf. It became clear we weren’t going to make it to the 17 mile lean to, and if I waited too much longer I wouldn’t be a lie to check out much of the gulf, so I moved on.
The first falls was amazing, I really loved it even if the climb down to it was a little tricky.
The next couple falls were from the top rim and were very nice but the trail had a lot of up’s and downs and I was sweating like crazy. I really had hoped I would be able to jump in the water and filter more water to drink. Luckily Buttermilk falls, the last waterfall before the AT connection trail, had a spot I could swim and get water!
The connecting trail was mostly flat and rather fast. I made it to the lean to a little after 6 and no sign of Beast, she’s probably at the campsite. So I made camp, I’ll probably get to the campsite tomorrow before she leaves anyway.
I took a walk from camp to a bog I passed earlier to watch sunset. It was dead silent, there were moose tracks all over the bog. I watched the colors change and saw a plane flying high up, vapor trail glowing orange, and I thought to myself “that’ll be me in just three weeks flying back to Germany”. It seems kind of crazy.
