Day Seven of the Ouachita Trail

Last night, after I finished my blog, another hiker showed up at the Shelter. He goes by TomCat on the trail. We exchanged pleasantries and he mentioned how hot it had been during the day. I noted that I used an umbrella to keep the sun off and that it helped out a lot. He asked me if it was a Z-Packs umbrella. I said yes that was the brand. He said he had seen one at the bottom of the hill below the shelter about 1.2 miles away. I checked. My umbrella was gone! As it was after sunset, I took off in the dark with a headlamp and when I got to the bottom of the hill, there was my umbrella. And by the time I got back to camp, I had gotten an additional 2.4 miles of walking in for the day! We call those bonus miles.😬

Well, today was not quite the bluebird day that yesterday was. Oh, the weather was nice if a little warm with highs in the mid 70s. And I didn’t walk as many miles as I did yesterday. The thing I did that made it more exhausting was I hiked about double the amount of elevation gain compared to yesterday, over 3,000 feet up. I think combined with the heat (even with my umbrella) that took it out of me. And one other thing. This is the stretch with no water. I have previously talked about a 25 mile stretch with no reliable water and this was the day of that. So I was carrying 5 L of water. Hmmm, no wonder I was tired.

There was one delightful little spring that wasn’t even on the map, but was on the trail. I was able to refill one of the containers that I had almost drained from thirst. There’s something pretty nice about cold spring water on a hot day.

I was able to hike a little beyond the point I thought I would stop, which will help me with tomorrow’s mileage. And a quick check of the weather shows a chance of thunderstorms tonight. So I’ve got my hammock set up and tarp deployed and I’m ready.🤞

If you were wondering, what happened to TomCat, he’s doing this trail in 10 days (I’m taking 22 (ed note: should be 17 days, I finish on the 22nd)), so when we left the shelter this morning, he was gone before I could even say goodbye. Zoom!

Until tomorrow, happy trails…