Alpine Camping
Miles: 13
Try not to eat all your food on first day challenge. difficulty: impossible. I’ve been going to chow town so much I need to remind myself to not eat everything at once! I start out with my food in a garbage bag and have to eat enough to fit it in my bear bag at the end of the day to hang it. Hiked a lot with Modelo again. It’s been a month since we hiked together. Magellan, Modelo, Geronimo (cool Eastern European guy who looks like an antagonist in an action movie), Scary, Zero, and Green are all camping in a really cool alpine forest microbiome. It’s like normal trees during our all day climb then suddenly bang, tall old pine trees and soft mulchy ground. I’m camping at the exit to where we hike tomorrow which is like a Christmas tree maze. This has to be the best tent city yet. Today was a better than average day. Had trail magic and got to hike in a group mostly. We also all took a mid-day sun nap on the top of one of the mountains we climbed. The excitement for the Trail Days festival in Damascus is ramping up. Scary, Zero, and I (+hopefully Green) somehow secured a ride with the Brazilians (The Baby Sitter and The Baby). The Baby Sitter is the younger one and The Baby is the older one. Scary named them. It really fits because The Baby really can’t do anything whenever he got split up from The Baby Sitter. It’s pretty bad and also kinda funny. The language barrier doesn’t help but The Baby Sitter speaks really good English. Shoutout to Greenman for letting me borrow his fork (I always misplace my stuff) and Scary for sharing some of her Simply Elizebeth cereal. She got it because I hyped it up so much but just like McDonalds hashbrowns, she said it was mid. We must have different taste pallets. I’ve also been lowkey trying to find a better trail name. Some people at the hostel mentioned some vampire dude but I didn’t get the reference and I never really got into vampires. Scary thought Fox News would be funny because I’m like the only one on trail that’s suspiciously conservative (even though I really just do it to rage bait). I talked about guns which took some people off guard. Also the main reason that the name came about was I interpreted the abundance of elephants in Erwin as a backwards celebration of hanging the elephant with a crane but really it’s for elephant charities and to make up for what happened. Another name that’s been in circulation is Fabio which is funny but I think a good name comes from the trail as they say. Anyways I’ll stick with Squirt until something perfect pops up. It’s getting super cold so I’m gonna get this one out and done so I can curl up in my sleeping bag. Not going to spellcheck :p