Day 31 - Pine Swamp Shelter

​Day 31 - Pine Swamp Shelter

Starting location: Mt. Algo shelter

Ending location: Pine Swamp shelter

Mileage today: 17.3 miles

Total Mileage: 340.6 miles

Today’s Photo

The story behind this photo ... 

Today was a day that God directly answered prayers in an amazing way. We woke up early and got on the trail by 6:30 am knowing we would have a long day of hiking. We decided to wait to have breakfast until we got a couple miles in. On our way up Caleb’s peak we found an overlook to eat some cereal. I texted Amee that we were on our way. By God’s grace she called me to say hi since she actually had decent signal. She off handedly mentioned that would be doing some boulder scrambles before getting to where she was. That comment made me pause because I thought where I was meeting her was flat. So I double checked my spreadsheet and immediately realized I had made a grave error. Where I told her to meet me, I had written down it was only 10 miles from the shelter but my far out app was saying it was 15 miles away! We didn’t have any lunch food for the boys. So I sent her the correct location to meet. 

Then later on I was mulling this spot over  realized why I didn’t pick this one in the first place. The road was closed in the summer so it wasn’t accessible. Then I tried to communicate that to Amee but she didn’t have signal. I didn’t have signal. So we get to the closed road around 10 am. It’s a mile road walk. She wasn’t at the south end, which I didnt expect her to be. So we hiked to the north end and immediately realized we are in trouble. It was a dead end. So I left the boys to play by the river and I ran the mile back to the south end on the miracle chance she somehow got there instead. No luck. I tried calling but not enough signal. So I ran back another mile to the boys praying the whole time. 

I told the boys we will just have to press on and hike the 10 miles to the place we originally were to meet and survive on 2 small bags of trail mix and a couple spoonfuls of peanut butter. 

The other issue was that my water bladder to filter water ruptured so I was unable now to filter water. Thankfully I had 2 filters that just screw onto water bottles so we could still drink filtered water but it will be much more of a pain. 

So we were about to leave the dead end when out of nowhere a cyclist came and turned around at the dead end. We literally haven’t seen a soul the whole day. So I was shocked but recovered quickly and asked if he happen to see a tan van when he biked here. He said no, so I told him if he saw a lady with a dog on his bike back...tell her I went to the original meeting place. He left. I turned to say one last prayer with the boys. When I heard a dog bark and then saw Amee and Froning literally running down the road to us! 

I was so shocked to see them and Amee even brought resupply food and lunch for us all. I told her about the cyclist and we all think he might have been an angel in disguise! lol. 

So we were able to enjoy lunch together and then hike on to the shelter with full stomaches. Praise the Lord for answered prayers and grace and mercy. 

This was the trail after we left amee. 5 miles of hiking bliss! Flat and smooth along a beautiful river. 

This was the spot we ate breakfast at. Sooo beautiful and even above the clouds today. 

This is a piped water source for anyone who isn’t an AT hiker and was wondering what some of the water sources were like. 

After the 5 miles of flat walking bliss we had 5 mountains to hike over and they were no joke. It took us a long time to make it over them, but we survived and had Joyride candy to celebrate with! Dinner and solitaire afterwards. 

Well time for bed and 13 mile day tomorrow. 

Night. 

Gandalf, Legolas & Bombadil.