Appalachian Trail SOBO Day 88 – The SOBO super bubble
22nd October 2023
Sugar Run Road (1572.9) - Helveys Mill Shelter (1604.4)
Daily miles: 23.9
Total miles: 1606.1
There were mice in the barn we were sleeping in. Sidequest had her bag of Cheetos chewed through in the night.
My bed in the barn
We went for breakfast which was all homemade and home grown stuff. My stomach still felt unsettled from yesterday so I went simple with some eggs, bread and butter and a couple of bits of fruit.
A delicious breakfast
Sunrise
It was time to settle the bill and I found out that Toe’s parents had paid for our dinner which was so nice of them. We packed up our stuff and the plan was to slack pack the first 11 miles. We also planned to take a blue blaze and cut off part of the AT so we would hike 27 miles for the day but get 31 trail miles in the bag. The other trail family had already decided to do the blue blaze and were working out how to say it to us in case we were purists, but of course we aren’t! So we all had the same plan - apart from Rabbit Foot who is a purist, aka a Red Line Randy.
Waiting for Cal to finish poopin
The SOBO super bubble! Howard, Jet, May Queen, Cal, Toe, Safety Inspector, Sidequest, Rabbit Foot, Puff Puff, Lemonhope
Woods Hole
So everyone but Rabbit Foot chucked their packs in the Toe’s parents car. Toe’s mum drove the car to the meeting point and would start hiking towards us and her dad and brother joined us for 11 miles.
Most people just dumped their whole packs and carried water and snacks but a couple of us - including me - took our (pretty much empty) bags, and that was mostly because I started in a lot of layers because it was cold, and I knew I would have to take them off at some point.
We did the 0.5 road walk back to trail and we were all really excited to be hiking without our full bags, it feels so freeing to have so little weight. And we were also excited about having new friends and new people to talk to.
Sidequest was excited for other female company
Toe with her brother and dad
There were so many conversations going on and it was so loud and fun. We all talked to everyone and at points when the blue blaze was a wide dirt road we could all hike next to each other rather than in a line which was nice.
Dirt roads are good for conversations
We didn’t quite take the right turning back to the trail and ended up bushwhacking a bit to find the trail again and luckily when we found the trail Toe’s mum was there waiting for us; thank goodness she hadn’t hiked past us! But she said she heard us long before she saw us which makes sense. Some of us are loud!
Are we going the right way?
We definitely aren’t going the right way here
We all walked together for another couple of miles in our hiker train to the road crossing where we collected our stuff out the car and had a break next to the river and ate snacks / drank beer.
Back on the trail
A little boy came along with his mum and he had a bag of sweets and he went round all of us and gave us a sweet which was too cute!
Howard taking candy from a child
We hung out for a while and then as we were setting up a group photo Rabbit Foot arrives and just walks into the back of the photo which was perfect timing!
Eventually we had to leave as we still had another 16 miles to do so we said goodbye to Toe’s parents and brother and got going.
The SOBO mega bubble! Featuring special guests – Toe’s family
I had to stop early on and take off my fleece layer because it had warmed up a lot and by the time I was ready to get going again everyone had overtaken and it was impossible for me to catch up because they were going so fast, and it was uphill, and my bag was so heavy and full of food.
Part of me started to spiral into bad thoughts and then the more reasonable side of my brain told me I would catch up to them at some point. It was actually quite nice to have a bit of time to myself after such an intense morning of talking and stimulation.
Big bridge energy
A lovely afternoon
And as expected I caught up to May Queen, Toe and Sidequest on the downhill. The girls were hiking together and the boys were hiking together. We caught up to the boys on the road. Turns out Howard had taken a fall and had a deep cut on his knee. He wanted to ignore it but Jet dobbed him in to Safety Inspector and he made him stop and clean and dress it. They don’t call him Safety Inspector for nothing.
People stopped and took a seat in the road but I decided to hike on.
Girl gang
A safety meeting
Taking a break in the middle of the road
We still had 11 miles to go and it was already 3:50pm. It was a bit of an uphill and I hiked out fully expecting everyone to overtake me. But I felt good and I was maintaining a good pace and it was only after 5 miles that I saw Rabbit Foot coming up behind me and shortly after Jet and Howard. I needed to pee so badly that I couldn’t wait for them to pass so I went behind a tree and they kindly waited until I was done. It’s not often that you have to pee in front of people you have just met.
Leafy
The trail was nice easy trail. Quite a few trees to step over, one of which I scraped my knee on - another graze to add to the collection – but for the most part it was smooth and gentle, other than being covered in a lot of leaves.
I was determined to get to the shelter as quickly as I could to limit the amount of night hiking I had to do. With 6 miles to go I was still moving well. I had to put a layer on because the wind was chilly.
The forest is so pretty
I kept catching up to Jet and Howard, I would catch up to them on the downhill and then they would pull away on the uphill. I overtook them about a mile before the shelter when they had stopped to get something out their pack. It was about half an hour of night hiking for me as I arrived at the shelter (which was 0.3 off trail) at 7:30pm. My headlamp batteries were dying and I had to keep turning my light off and on so it would be bright again and it would slowly dim until I couldn’t see.
Catching up to Howard and Jet
Rabbit Foot had already set up his tent and was about to go down to the water which was 0.2 off trail. I couldn’t be bothered to go down there and I would have just eaten something cold and made do with the bit of Ginger Ale flavoured water that I had, but both Rabbit Foot and Howard offered to take my bottle down and collect water for me, which was so nice of them, so I didn’t have to go.
I swept out the shelter before the others arrived. We are in the shelter and our new friends are camping, so that works out nicely. We had dinner around the picnic table and I had noodles followed by a hot chocolate, made possible by the water collected for me. I’m glad I was able to have a hot meal.
Toe has lost her stove today. And her spoon.
My stomach had been very gassy today and I hope that’s going to go away tomorrow.
My headlamp died just as I was going to bed.
