The cold nights bring out a lot of condensation. I took advantage of the early sun to air and dry out my top quilt before getting on the trail.

Lost & found

I have managed to lose, and subsequently find three items of gear on my hike so far.

• The first was on Day One, when a tie out for my tarp went missing. I guess I didn’t fit it securely when I was changing the tie out fittings. I wasn’t concerned, I guessed it had fallen on the ground when I opened out my tarp. I reckoned my light would find it when it got dark (the rope is reflective). As it was I found it on the ground a few minutes after I realized it was missing.
• The second was last night (Day Two). I tripped over a tie out and kicked a stake out of the ground. I spent around 20 minutes on my hands and knees in the dark looking for it. Again not a problem, I carry spares, but I didn’t want to lose it.
• The third was sometime overnight, a bit more problematic and expensive. I lost my glasses. I was sure I’d put them in the tidy that hangs from the ridgeline of my hammock. Maybe I missed the tidy? I carefully emptied everything out of my hammock and laid it out on my ground sheet. Nothing. They weren’t in my quilt, my under quilt, or my under quilt protector, which acts as a general catch-all for things that get dropped in the hammock.
  
  I was resigning myself to spending several hundred dollars buying a new pair. Without them I am only able to see vaguely in bright sunshine — that will make following the trail interesting, to say the least. Not to mention the drive home!
  
  I decided to check the ground around my hammock. The chances of me, without glasses, being able to find my glasses among all the leaf litter seemed to be fairly remote. Once again on my hands and knees, I sifted through the leaves, and finally found them. Phew!

Oops, I did something to my back

While bending over and crawling around looking for my lost tarp stake, I put my back out. Badly. The slightest wrong movement caused a lot of pain.

Taking it slowly, I could stand up straight, and get into and out of my hammock with only a few stabbing pains.

Pain or not, I was only halfway round, with another ten miles to go. Today I have another 200 ft. climb too, and I’ll need to carry water, as the North Loop is notoriously dry. Though I was hoping to find some water at what I presumed was a spring on Whites Creek, where I planned to stop tonight. We’ll see how that goes.

Copyright © 2024 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.