Day 38: Taking the Iron Mountain detour

I got some sleep this morning, after staying up too late last night. Even though I was going to return to the trail today, I took it a little too easy a morning, sipping a couple cups of coffee while slowly packing my bag. Rounding that out, I went to Dairy King with Dirty Dog for breakfast, probably around 9:30am. I got a couple of breakfast cookie sandwiches and a French fries burger, all of which were pretty solid. Now that I had had my caffeine and food, it was theoretically time to get back on the trail. However, I ended up sitting in a recliner at the hostel for a while working on a blog post I didn’t do yesterday. With that out of the way, I finally headed out to the trail around 11:00am. Much later than I intended, especially with the goal of doing 30 kilometers today.

Back on the road

The walk started at the hostel, which was just a few meters from the trail, and I walked around the rest of Damascus, before following the path a little out of the city before the trail headed into the forest again. As always, after leaving civilization, the road began with a climb. It was a moderate climb that got the muscles firing again and continued for a couple of miles.

After a little over 3 miles, I took the turnoff onto the Iron Mountain Trail. The Iron Mountain Trail Detour is a 21 mile detour to get around what I believe is a 7 mile closed section of the AT due to damage from Hurricane Helene. The good thing about this bypass is that it runs where the AT used to run, I think until the 1970s. Different parts of the bypass, if not most of it, were multi-use. Horses and bikes were allowed, which meant the slope was a little easier than usual and I had to watch out for horse shit. Once at the turnoff, the climb was fairly steady, if gradual, for most of the day. And since this isn’t the normal AT, I was following yellow flames instead of white. A fun little change of pace and a return to the Ice Age Trail in Wisconsin, which also uses yellow blazes. Shout out to the Ice Age Trail!

Ridge hike

A good part of the walk today followed along a ridge line, with occasional good views to the sides. But there aren’t too many clean views, usually with trees in the way. I was lucky to have some pretty good weather, partly sunny and although a bit warm, as I climbed, it was a fairly comfortable day’s walk.

Great view but somewhat obstructed.

Starting later, I didn’t take many breaks, just a stop about 8 miles in to filter water and have a snack. Other than that, snacks occurred as I traveled until I arrived at the cherry tree shelter a little after 6 pm. The shelter area was full when I arrived, but I found a flat spot for my tent, perhaps too close to the picnic table, but no one seemed too fazed by that. It’s not the busiest day, but that’s about to change tomorrow…

Statistics for day 38:

18.6 miles

4,760′ ascent, 2,287′ descent

Broken Fiddle Hostel to Cherry Tree Shelter

1 DSLC…

Stove use times: 7

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