4/17/15  – Random Awesome Campsite by Laurel Falls – 17 miles

We had a beautiful day of hiking! The trail was smooth and allowed good conversation with Supermoon, Roub, Cider, and Darwin. We passed a cool old barn and stopped to inspect it then Supermoon and I took turns peeing beside it. We then stopped off at a hostel a bit off trail for a little self-made trail magic. We sat out on the porch and devoured ice cream, microwavable sandwiches, and a few adult beverages. We discussed the history of the hostel with a few other hikers staying there finding out that the hostel used to be a Boy Scout camp. It reminded me of a filming location for the movie “Friday the 13th”. Poor Kevin Bacon! We finally pulled ourselves away from the hostel and junk food to hike our last few miles.

I felt really good having knocked out ten miles before ten o’clock this morning. Now after leaving the hostel, I felt giddy with ice cream and alcohol (only one Mike’s Hard Lemonade mind you) and ready to almost run the last few miles. I felt the trail gods were really smiling upon me. I felt like a real thru-hiker.

We entered a section of trail that seemed to remind us all of places from our hometowns. The trail was rocky but easy hiking for weekenders whom were out and about. It was nice to see and smell non thru-hikers leaving me with a twinge of homesickness.

We passed Laurel Falls, which was beautiful, but Darwin and I kept moving as the others lingered a bit. The trail literally followed right along side the river leaving us clinging to a rock face for balance. One wrong step and you could fall right in the river. I pretended to be a badass at this point and kept up with Darwin my thoughts wondering off to Kevin Bacon again this time in “The River Wild”.

We set up camp at a random spot along the river. Cruise Control found our camp a little later and joined us for the evening. It was good to see her and she only added more enjoyment to our evening. We all talked around the fire several hours and enjoyed being warm and dry. There seemed to be a buzz in the air as we reviewed our day, proud of our seventeen miles. We caught some well deserved Z’s as we fell asleep to the sounds of the river less than 200 ft. away.