Appalachian Trail (day 20) - Little Hump Mountain to White Rocks Mountain / mile 416

Today I ended up way further than expected, thanks to two hikers which unintentionally pushed me forward.

Day was foggy and I missed "one of the best views on AT" (people love to say that) in the morning. To be fair the view from Hump Mountain must have been great, but I've seen neighboring landscapes yesterday and that was enough, not much I could do about the weather.
Trail was fairly cruisy from that point on, we crossed the 400 mile marker and as I was passing a hiker called Viking I congratulated him on this occasion, he asked me to say hello to his friend called "Second Breakfast" who was ahead on the trail but I never met him.
Instead I've bumped into two others, Burger Man and Stretch, they've been hiking to a hostel called Kincora, an oldschool "hiker trash" only place, which was donation based (recommended donation 5$). They almost convinced me to push there even though it was way pass the amount of miles I was planning to go today. I was considering it mainly because I didn't have a shower in a week.

For a while trail was going along the river with heavy hurricane Helene damage left on its banks. Trees which were left standing were wrapped in debris. There were pieces of mangled, unrecognisable metal, car tyres, gas bottles, all kinds of plastic produce, even clothing items like shoes, which made you wonder if they were on someone's feet during the flood or not.
I decided not to push to the hostel and stay at the nice meadow four miles closer. It was already a big day for me and I was tired. There was not much advantage of pushing any further as I would probably arrive there late, and didn't get much rest. One more hiker called "Good Luck Phil" was staying at the meadow tonight, he was unaware of the hostel and said that if he knew about it he would definitely push forward as he finished hiking early today. Phil got his trail name on the first day during the approach trail, people were stoping him and wishing him good luck on his thru hike, and it stuck.

I've washed myself in the stream which was a good enough shower alternative until I've reached Damascus. Spotted first tick crawling on top of the tent, which immediately got me paranoid about them.

I've had supper, hanged the food, said good night to Good Luck Phil and went to bed.

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