Hot Springs: It isn’t a thru-hike if you don’t live it up
My friend Erin drove up from Asheville to grab lunch with me in Hot Springs
What a great feeling to wake up in Elmer’s amazing hostel and eat a wholesome breakfast over discussion of philosophy. Since the pair of shoes I got in the mail in Fontana Dam ended up being too small and giving me a huge blister, I’ve decided to bite the bullet and buy a new pair of shoes at the Hot Springs outfitter. My feet went from a women’s size 9.5 to a men’s 9.5! I wasn’t anticipating this big of a foot size increase this quickly.
I met my friend/old housemate/climbing buddy/fellow policy scientist, Erin, who drove up from Asheville for lunch. We had a great time catching up and drinking beer at the Rock Bottom Cafe. I putzed around town for a couple more hours, fooled around on the internet, and finally dragged myself out of town. One of the best things about hiking the AT for the second time is getting to confusing roadwalks and intersections and remembering which way to turn without having to double check the blazes. This wasn’t the case on the way out of Hot Springs and I ended up walking a bit past the blaze and having to back track. Oh well!
As the sun sets, the night hikes begins…
At 3:30, the climb out of Hot Springs was brutal, especially since it was so hot. I met DVD by a spring where I made a point to eat a ton of my food to lower my pack weight (always a great strategy). By the time it cooled down a bit, I headed past Spring Mtn Shelter (which was full, of course), and night hiked a bit with Mark Trail. He stopped at a campsite with many other people from the hostel. They had a fire going, food passed around, and were having a great time, and it took all my willpower to drag myself away from them and continue hiking alone in the dark.
I downed some caffeine and set off to finish my miles for the day to Little Laurel Shelter. It was a weird experience of feeling very fast and energized, but motivated by adrenaline and a little bit of fear. I kept thinking about what would happen when I got to a road crossing and a car saw me, Would I get killed by mountain hicks? What were all these lights I was seeing in the distance? Headlamps of crazed axe murderers? (Actually, pretty sure they were houses). I became pretty paranoid and by the time I lost my fear-induced wind, it was 11:30. I did a poor job of setting up my hammock and called it a night, eventually giving up on my hammock and sleeping on the ground under my tarp, hoping that those clouds wouldn’t mean rain. A weird night, but totally worth it for the fantastic time I had in Hot Springs.
