Day 3 (April 15, 2022, Friday)
Up around 8am with a lovely fire and gourmet breakfast of oatmeal and strawberry shake. Tea for Lisa and coffee for Ken. We’re going to do 6.9 miles today to the road, and then 6 miles walk or car-ride in to Cherokee to resupply.
Lisa’s GPS was off so it was actually 14 miles to Cherokee, so we did 11 miles today. A black hog family of three, with daddy first, baby in the middle, then the mommy bringing up the rear were carousing for their next buffet; when they noticed us they turned and ran the other direction. Lisa saw the flash of black, thought it was a bear and froze, tried to emulate a tree stump behind Ken. Lots of white flowers, many stream crossings, and a silver bark tree. No photo would do the silver tree justice, so it will remain in Lisa’s mind (and now perhaps yours).
We crossed a big creek with super cold water. Ken held Lisa’s hand and we both had poles in the other. Good thing we had put our feet in the water at the first bridge to acclimate. It was super cold and went above Lisa’s knee.
“We shared a journey down the river as tiny humans on a leaf, it was magical. There were piranhas flying over the waterfall and attacking our feet in the water. We had to dive to save our feet from being gnawed off.”
Started climbing immediately and the mountain had 2 peaks. Then we made it to camp 48 where we have a fire ring again. Lisa was pooped. Ken set up camp and Lisa made fire.
“Ken made the analogy that building fires is like cooking wood.”
11 miles