May 30

Familiar ground

Today looks like it's going to be tough.  Right from the start there's a long big climb up Floyd Mountain.  I was pleasantly surprise that the hike up there wasn't very taxing.  Took a snack break at Cornelius Creek shelter, and kept moving toward Apple Orchard Mountain.  Slims got ahead, followed by Apache, then me, Rainbow Eyes and Tink.  On the climb up Apple Orchard, I passed by another trail intersection that would take you to the falls.  This was the furthest south I had ever been on the AT before my thru-hike.  I was in this exact spot 2 years ago when I did a day hike to the falls.  Now I felt like I was home.  Awesome.  Got up to the summit.  Apache was already up there waiting.   He had seen Slims, who had taken a short break and kept moving.  He's trying to keep up a 16-18 mile per day pace for the next 2 weeks in order to meet some family in Harpers Ferry, WVa.  The rest of us made it up to the top.  Apache and I moved on while the others started their breaks.  We're walking through the Thunder Ridge Wilderness now today.  Pulled into a campsite around 6pm at Marble Springs.  Slims wasn't there waiting on us.  We wouldn't catch up with him.  Hopefully we'll see him when we get to WVa.  We camped out there with Thirsty, and another hiker, Croc Hunter, who was a really funny guy.  In the middle of the night, a noise woke me up.  Tink heard it too.  She started asking if anyone heard that.  I said, yeah, I'm up.  Let's go see what it is.  There was some animal circling our campsite, down near where Croc and Thirsty had their tents set up.  Tink was sure it was a bear, and started yelling "Go away bear!" at the top of her lungs.  Everyone else was awake at this point.  Haha.  Thirsty heard it near his hammock, and started clapping to scare it off.  I headed out into the woods with my light on, and eventually caught up to the animal, only to find out that it was just a deer.  LOL!

The FAA control tower on Apple Orchard Mountain, elev. 4225 feet.