Day 77: Biggest Miles Yet!

Miles hiked: 28.5

Mile marker: 1183

We’re snails this morning as we drag ourselves out of our comfy beds and begin to get ready for the day.

Fortunately, I was given a biscuits and gravy dehydrated meal for free. Since I don’t eat hot breakfasts on trail, I eat this. The biscuits are still rock hard, but the sausage gravy is pretty good!

Only when I go downstairs and see Maui, the older hiker who gave the meal to me, he tells me I should break apart the biscuits first.

Bumper left around 4:30 AM today, so it’s just Luxy, Rafiki, and me. We mean to leave at 7:00 today, but it’s 8:30 by the time we get going.

We hike down the road and up some rocky and dusty terrain at the start. It’s already hot, and we’ve just begun!

We go under two rippled tunnels. Shortly after, the we see that the woman who was behind us fell! Luxy was there to witness it. The woman had blood on her jacket wrapped around her waist as well as her hand.

She’s with her husband and granddaughter. “Do you need anything?” I ask.

“Here, you sit here,” Rafiki says as we move off of our rock. “Can we get you some water?”

The man is adamant and polite in declining our help. We all feel bad for her.

“This is very difficult terrain for a grandparent,” Luxy says. She’s right, too. I had to pull out my trekking poles that have been stored away in my backpack because the path was so rocky.

We wander the trails for the next six miles. Finally, at almost noon, we stop at a hut for lunch.

While we sit and eat our ramen and cous cous, we discuss the game plan.

“I can hike ahead. I need to send my bear can home. It doesn’t fit all of my food, and I have to eat enough so I don’t continued to drop weight,” Rafiki says. The post office closes at 12:30 tomorrow and doesn’t reopen until Monday, three days from today.

“We can do 20 more miles today. Then tomorrow we can get up early and hike fifteen into town,” Luxy responds. “We’ll get in late, but I think we can do it.”

She’s right. We can.

It’s about 1:30 when Luxy and I begin our hike. We chat for a while until we reach the water source. We filter water and Rafiki joins us.

“I didn’t expect to see you so soon,” he says.

Luxy hikes on and Rafiki and I continue to filter water. We soon begin the hike. Luxy must be flying! I’m moving as fast as I can without running and we still can’t catch her!

We finally come together again and continue to push up a big hill. We’re all flying.

It’s a tough push, but soon the sun is setting. Luxy kindly asked us not to leave her in the dark, so we’re all together now.

The sun drops down and is blinding me. The sky turns cool blue. The horizon glows yellow and orange over the mountains. The trees are silhouetted.

We’re all glued to one another as we walk through the trees. My feet hurt, but I’ve been counting down miles since we paused for dinner at seven o’clock.