Hiking Trail Journals

Appalachian Trail 2003 - Chelsea's Journals

Entry #37 - April 29, 2003

I started out the day down in the dumps again. Maybe I was thinking too much – starting to feel overwhelmed. It’s been 31 days already, but that’s only about 1/6th of the time that we’ll be spending out here. I can’t let myself sit and think about home, and all the comforts and all of the things we’ll be missing this summer – it’s too hard. 

We passed some interesting areas early in the day. There was a cool area called Big Rocks that had some views and rocky parts. After that was a long bald area, like a field atop a mountain. It seemed there could have been a village there or something.

Passed the Sheldon Graves – Union Soldiers from NC ambushed & killed by Confederates in the Civil War. I am surprised by how many graves we pass on the trail. Some are memorials, but many are actual burial sites. 

The day started getting better somewhere around 6 or 7 miles. Then, as luck would have it, Heather’s mom Wendy was down @ Devil’s Fork Gap w/her van. YIPPEE! Pop, candy & some cookies. It was a great treat. After that it was up, up, up a mountain. Passed a lot of old-feeling areas. Fences, fallen buildings and junkpiles of decades past.

Finally made it to Hogback Ridge Shelter & set up the tent. The weather should hold out again tonight. Guess who rolled in later – Radar, Hepcat, Kodiak & Sassy. They ended up spending another night in Hot Springs instead of leaving when we did! Tomorrow we hear there’s more Trail Magic. Just the thing to keep us going, mentally AND physically! I hope it’s true! :)

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