Miles: 4.7 Steps: 13,392 Vertical gain: 87 feet Liquid consumed: 140 oz. Wildlife: Rabbits, a ton of deer so close to me on the park, lots of humans at the Gathering Faith in Humanity: Today goes to Peru for sure! Picked me up just outside the National Park and drive me 3.5 hours to the Hiker Gathering. Thanks so much! It rained on and off last night but when I woke up initially it was pretty dry. I delayed in taking everything down and of course it rained fairly hard and consistently for the next couple of hours. It irked me a little when my neighbors in the campsite across the road stared at me I The rain, but they not only had a huge canopy thing, but also a larger covered cooling area. Easily could have offered me a dry place for a few minutes. Obviously it’s not their need or responsibility to do this, but I found it slightly amusing. A good lesson for later on in life if I were in their position I should go out of my way to offer a little shelter. I mean, even if think I’m super annoying it’s obvious I’m taking down my tent so they won’t have to spend long with me, haha. Next I walked about 5 miles on a flat rainy road and only waited a couple minutes for Peru to pick me up. It was great to chat with her on the ride to Keystone. She was easy to get along with as she’s quite an accomplished long distance Hiker so we’ve been many of the same places, etc. we had a tasty lunch at Subway in Leadville then arrived in Keystone around 3pm. I wasn’t 100% sure what the ALHDA (American Long Distance Hiking Association) Gathering would be like, but it has been amazing so far. Really nice people, I got to take a shower and do laundry, pretty much all you can eat food and beer and chocolate even, too. I’m the only person here who’s actually hiking here, so I took advantage of all of the food and essentially trail magic that surrounded me. I had so much fun, I actually stayed up until past 4am. Sure, I had a few beers and such but I wasn’t a drunken mess, I was just genuinely enjoying human interaction with my peers!