Day 40: Order pizza for the trail?

I slept well last night, probably tired after yesterday’s 20 mile day. This morning I woke up to condensation in my tent, which probably meant my clothes didn’t dry overnight outside on a tree branch. Which I soon confirmed was true. Fun… Anyway, I got a good jump in that day and was on the trail a little after 7:30am. The early start was purposeful, as the plan today was to ride 22 miles to Partnership Shelter. This shelter is important as it has showers and is close enough to the road and town that you can order pizza from it! It’s all the motivation needed.

I’ll walk for pizza

The morning started with a long but gradual climb. This continued for the first 3 miles of the day. The trail during this section was quite pleasant and the miles came quickly. The next section of the trail alternated up and down, where the trail varied between dirt and uncomfortably rocky. Which caused my speed to vary quite a bit, from 2 mph to 3 mph. But, after a few miles of this, I came to Comers Creek Falls, which was a small waterfall.

The rest of the morning and early afternoon blurred together a bit as I made good time through a trail of mostly easy to moderate difficulty.

The trail then emerged from the forest into a wonderful green pasture.

As I walked through the pasture for a while, I was besieged by cows! They were all quite docile and didn’t mind my passing at all and looked at me with some curiosity.

What are you doing here? – Cow

Then, with about 8 miles left in the day, I found the first water source for miles. I stopped to fill up and ran into Ground Control and Major Tom, a couple of guys I’ve been visiting with the last few days. I stopped and chatted with them while I had a snack and dipped my feet in the stream. After a 45 minute break, I needed to keep moving, and so did they. After that water source I had a road crossing, followed by a rocky climb for about half a mile. After that, I had to follow a very nice trail for about a mile, going around the mountain. From the way the topography looked, I suspect this could have been a road at one time. One thing I noticed around this time is that the trail is really starting to turn green! Spring is really starting to arrive.

The trees are coming to life

The mid-afternoon was made up of several gentle and moderate climbs, and some very rocky sections that were quite annoying. I even got to walk a few miles along a ridge line which was nice and offered views down into the valley.

View of the valley below

Pizza

After the ridge line, there were a couple of miles of gradual descent that were quite hilly. This took us to the Partnership Shelter. Upon arrival, I was greeted by about 20 tents set up in front of the shelter along the trail, and people at the shelter! With a 5:30pm arrival, I suspected there would be a handful of people there, but this exceeded my expectations. It appears there may have been between 10 and 15 hikers, as well as a group of non-hikers, perhaps more than 20, who were camping there. Ignoring this, I walked to the Visitor Center, which had closed at the time, to order pizza. I arrived with Major Tom and Ground Control, and then met up with Ghost and Star (whom I’d also been hiking with) to place a big pizza order. Fortunately, while there was no cell reception there, there is a phone outside the visitor center with some laminated menus. We decided what we wanted, I called and placed an order for several pizzas and a couple of 2 liter bottles of soda. With a 45 minute wait, we sat down and used the guest Wi-Fi in the visitor center while we waited for our feast. Soon enough, the delivery driver stopped by with our food and was even kind enough to bring us glasses of ice as we shared two liters of Pepsi. I bought a large Carnivore pizza, which as you might assume, is a meat lovers pizza, and it quickly disappeared.

I didn’t have any chance

While we were eating, Ground Control brought up the idea of ​​continuing to walk, due to the number of people in and around the shelter. While on paper that wasn’t the most appealing option after walking over 22 miles and eating large amounts of food, I was interested. I figured that with the amount of people there, the sleeping arrangements wouldn’t be ideal and if I went a couple more miles today, that would shorten the amount of time I would spend in the rain tomorrow. So Ground Control, Major Tom and I made plans to go about 2.5 miles to a tent site.

Forward

After filling up on drinking water, I walked up the hill in front of the visitor center. With a very full stomach, this wasn’t the most fun, but I did work on my dinner a bit. Which was probably good for digestion. During this short walk I even saw my first rhododendron flower bloom!

I arrived at the target store site around 8:00 pm, just as the sun was setting. The tent site was a bit overgrown, but had moderately flat areas. So, in the waning light, I set up my tent and got it ready for bed. As I was finishing, Major Tom and Ground Control appeared and set up shop next to me and we chatted about our upcoming plans for the next few days. With some rain predicted tomorrow and tomorrow night, I needed to decide what I was going to do. But as with most things on the road, flexibility and adaptability are the best approach.

Day 40 Statistics:

24.7 miles

5,075′ ascent, 4,810′ descent

Stealth site to store site

3DSLC…

Stove use times: 7

Tracker of whole pizzas consumed: 6

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