Appalachian Trail (day 95) - Barren Ledges to Hay Mountain / mile 2124

Lovely, cloudy day with a minimal amount of rain in Hundred Mile Wilderness.

And not so wild after all, I've crossed both railroad and a gravel road while being here but of course compared to the rest of AT it is nothing. I can't hear cars or trains in the distance while walking which is a relief.

First ten miles of the trail today was going over "Chairbacks" arguably the toughest section of the whole HMW mainly due to it's jagged terrain. There was sadly no views as the clouds were covering the surroundings. The terrain got better afterwards, most of rocks, roots and mud has disappeared, from that point it reminded me of walking in Vermont.

I've met fair bit of Sobo's, most of them just went past but one called Rabbit Walnut stopped and had a chat with me. His parents were living in Atlanta and he was planning to hike all the way, directly to their house, he would have to hike additional 20 miles after AT was over in order to do so. He was trying to keep it a secret but his mum was suspicious already as he was not responding to her text messages due to the lack of cell coverage in the area. Personally I thought that it would be better if he just told them about it.

After an easy and shallow Pleasant River crossing, trail started to climb up to White Cap Mountain over several other peaks. I was not planning to complete this whole section today but rather find a good campsite somewhere in the middle of it, and indeed I found one in no time. To my surprise as I was cooking the dinner, Diehard and Trademark went past me, I thought they were ahead this whole time but apparently they had a late start because "mosquitoes attacked them at 3:30 in the morning". They were still heading to the shelter few miles ahead and were planning to do a big day tomorrow. Diesel slowed down and stayed behind but he had time until Sunday (today was Tuesday) when his wife was coming to pick him up so that wasn't a surprise.

Tomorrow the trail was getting flatter and was running along lakes and rivers, I would probably hike bigger miles as well, my only hope was that the mosquitoes and ticks would take a day off but I knew it was not going to happen.

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