Day 34 – Taking off my boots at Boots Off

I slept pretty well last night after a pretty long and tiring day yesterday. While I was getting ready, I started chatting with the other people camping nearby. It was a mother and son duo, Fern and Fireman, on a stretch hike. Turns out they’ve been section hiking together for several years, great! Even after packing up and moving, we continued walking together and chatting the 3 miles I had to Boots Off Hostel. They were great company! The hike down was pretty easy, all downhill from the tent site, about 1800 feet in 3 miles. Relatively uneventful, outside of a nice view of Watauga Lake from above, which was great.

Boots off

After reaching the road, it was about 0.1 mile to Boots Off. Although I arrived well before check-in time, I was able to grab a cold drink, shower, put on some borrowed clothes, and put my hiking clothes in the laundry line.

Elegant shower!

After I cleaned myself up, I saw some people take out frozen pizzas and start cooking them, so naturally I had to join them! After a systematic dismantling of the pizza, I set about doing some of my chores. I started by carrying things, backwashing my water filter (I badly needed it!) and other things. I also did a mini resupply of food at the hostel, since I only needed a little food from the resupply box they had sent me in the mail (thanks mom!). Also, since I only had 2 days of hiking before arriving in Damascus, where I was able to resupply again, I didn’t need much. The rest of the afternoon I worked on blog posts for a couple of hours and chatted with some fellow hikers.

I had the pink bunk bed

At 5 pm the bell rang and I got on the bus to go to the city. Since my resupply was already taken care of, I bought two blackberry pies at the supermarket. One for now and one for tomorrow morning. Don’t judge me, they were the mini, pocket ones, not the full cakes! After that, we stopped at McDonald’s, where I ordered a rather large and unhealthy order which I happily consumed.

Back at the hostel it was a quiet night, I retrieved my clothes and packed my bag to prepare for tomorrow. Hiker’s (dark) midnight came quickly…

Progress report

Statistics for day 34:

3.0 miles

3′ ascent, 1,736′ descent

Pond Flats to Boots Off Hostel

2DSLC…

Stove use times: 7

Tracker of whole pizzas consumed: 4

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