Today is day five and I'm sitting in my tent at about 7:00 pm. I hiked for a little over 9 hours today and clicked off around 8 miles. To say this is slower and harder than I expected would be an understatement.
To start with I was carrying WAY too much weight. I mean I had about 10 pounds of things that needed to be left in a trash can. I also had WAY too much food. I followed the usual rule of thumb for calories and the such but soon realized I'm not eating all this stuff.
Then there is the brutal hills you climb and descend and do all over again. Over and over. Seems I'm always hiking UP!!! Then the blisters. First on the ball of my foot. Dime size to now silver dollar size. Then one on my big to (same foot) then another on the outside of yes, the same foot. Start to limp carrying close to 40 pounds in a pack on your back and everything starts to hurt; hips, ankles, knees, shoulder.... You get the idea.
There are lots of people on the trail doing the same thing. All ages and from all walks of life. I've met some fine people so far and all seem friendly and excited to see what happens. People are moving fast, slow and everything in between. Nights are interesting. A collection of souls all looking fora place to pitch a tent or roll out a sleeping bag. When one stops others seem to follow. Kind of the safety in numbers thing. Not a lot of chit chat but acknowledgement we are all in this together.
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