Day 52 Apple Orchard

 We had ideal weather and 20 miles with a lot of uphill climbing. We made it to camp before 5PM. 


I didn’t sleep great last night. I woke up at 3AM to rustling outside the shelter. I turned on my flashlight and a deer looked back over its shoulder at me from about 10 feet away. Despite my best efforts it hung out the rest of the night and the next morning. Although it posed no danger, I don’t have an easy time sleeping with a 100 pound wild animal acting strangely nearby. I guess the deer owned the shelter because it hung around until we started hiking. I tried yelling at it, making large threatening motions, and throwing rocks in its direction (intentionally missing, just trying to scare it). Anyway, we started hiking around 8:15. 


As I mentioned earlier the weather was awesome today. About 60 degrees and mostly sunny with a little wind. We started the morning by briefly hiking a ridge. 



We stopped at a massive shelter around 11 for lunch. This thing was the size of a small house.



After lunch we had a long 15 mile climb up Apple Orchard Mountain. The climb didn’t feel very hard but by the end of the day my legs were pretty tired. 




After the summit we passed a landmark called the Guillotine and a beautiful overlook called Thunder Ridge. 




The trail from Apple Orchard Mountain to camp was a pretty easy ridge walk. Tomorrow we plan to hike 22.4 miles. One of Tyler’s mom’s friends from high school named Heather is planning to help us out. She and her husband will pick us up tomorrow around 6PM and take us to resupply. 


Our next resupply will get us to the start of the Shenandoah National Park. It looks like we will continue having great weather. I’m really looking forward to Shenandoah, I hear it’s beautiful. 


Goodnight,

Walker 






If you want to follow Tyler or Spencer, here are their logs as well:


Tyler: https://tylerat2024.blogspot.com/?m=1


Spencer: https://www.instagram.com/baxter.bound?utm_source=qr&igsh=MWx4MzRqa3M4dGk3Mw==

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