Miles: 21 Steps: 48,543 Elevation Gain: Strava knows! Faith in Humanity: Quiet Paul was amazing! 4 or 5 scrambled eggs each plus a healthy helping of potatoes, with Coca Cola to wash it down, so amazing before a huge climb, thank you!!!!! Another absolutely amazing day! A bit chilly in the morning but that quickly went away with some climbing on Hogback Ridge. Beautiful ridge! Next up was Quiet Paul’s Trail Magic! He hiked in 2007 (so did I!!) so at least we had something in common. He sure was quiet but served up some huge loud servings of scrambled eggs and potatoes! So awesome, love the huge serving sizes, you’re the man! Next was a huge climb up to Big Bald! Incredibly beautiful and awesome, wow! I feel so lucky to get to do this so often! Ahh to dream and live, to live the Dream. It’s real and it’s the best! Warmest day on the trail so far: warm and sunny and 70. Made me a bit scared of what it’ll even be like when it’s 90! It felt pretty hot! I got a bit dehydrated towards the end of a long 20 miles. What did I learn? I need to stop more often and eat! I basically pushed 10 miles up a huge mountain, took an hour long lunch break then tried to push the next 10.5 miles without a break in the heat. That was a bit silly. Lesson learned, I hope. Eventually made it to the shelter and enjoyed chatting with Blaze, Oven, Atlas, Concrete Cowboy, Sprouts, Webster, and others. Hiking with hikers two days in a row!??! Crazy times!!! Town tomorrow. Think I’m going to try to do the 130 mile stretch into Damascus. Some rumors of bad weather coming... we shall see! Ok, now to plan for town and go to bed!