A Not So Great Day (ECT Day 46)

• Hiked Today: 18.3 miles
  • The Florida Trail (718.3 – 736.6)
• Total Hiked: 949.1 miles
• Total Paddled: 99.5 miles

Weather: 55-80°F, mostly cloudy and overcast some sun later in afternoon, wind gusts at times

Sirmans Missionary Baptist Church to Camp NimbleWill/Aucilla WMA

It’s never fun telling the stories of the not so good times on trail. Luckily, today started off great. I packed up in the dark at the church, said goodbye to Rookie since he was up and moving around, and hit the trail. It felt good having my power bank charged up since yesterday I was running close to empty.

I still had about 18 miles of road before reaching actual trail again.

There were a few highlights today, the first of which was bumping into a fellow ECT’er, Trail Beard!

Photo credit goes to Trail Beard. No doubt about who’s winning in the beard category right now, but we’ll see if I’m still going up in Newfoundland!

I met Trail Beard briefly at Trail Fest, but this was great getting more time to chat. He’s been section hiking the route, bopping around to different places when he can based on weather and time off and such. I’d seen some of his posts on Facebook prior to starting out actually, which is always helpful, getting a glimpse of what’s ahead. We had a nice convo along the road here, albeit short, got to keep moving always.

The next bonus on today’s hike wasn’t exactly a surprise; I knew it was coming. Still, stellar nonetheless!

That’s right, a soda machine right along the trail in this random road walk section.

I didn’t actually do the Dew right then and there, I saved it for a bit ahead on trail where I stopped for second breakfast. Unfortunately that was the turning point in the day. Whether from anything I ate or drank, I don’t know, but from that point on I felt crummy the rest of the day.

I have some history with stomach issues and this felt like my usual. At one point they diagnosed me with severe crohn’s disease, but pretty sure they got that one wrong. That, or thru-hiking cured me because ever since getting on the PCT in 2019 it’s been much more rare that things flare up.

What I typically do when this happens is stop eating until things calm down. Then I might transition to a liquid diet for a while. Well, that doesn’t work great when hiking because food is energy. So, not only was I in pain from my stomach which had a hip belt strapping it tight (I would end up loosening it to bear more weight on my shoulders instead), but I started getting drained.

As I neared the end of the road walk, it was clear to me that I wasn’t making my 28+ mile day I’d set out for. And in fact, I was considering stopping as soon as possible once I found a water source. Moving slow and taking breaks often, I was in pretty rough shape. And that’s when I came around a bend and saw Camp NimbleWill for the second time on this trail! Highlight number 3.

For those that missed the previous post when I’d met Nimbleawill, he completed the Eastern Continental Trail in 1998. I’ve heard both that he was the first to do it or maybe the second. It was rad that I got to meet him at all, and here he was coming to my rescue. He’s been camping out along the FT to meet hikers and provide trail magic and wish us well. It really was great timing.

As I approached, he smiled and asked, how you doing? He remembered me from before which I was impressed with and appreciated since he’s met so many hikers recently. I told him that I wasn’t feeling so good and that my stomach felt off. He offered me a chair by his fire and I accepted but told him I’d keep my distance just in case it’s some bug. We caught up and eventually when it came up, he offered me the water I needed if I were to camp. 

Nimblewill got a photo of me hanging… Looking pretty weary!

I felt bad not being very social and all, but at 2:30 pm I set up my tent and crawled inside. I only peeked out around 6:00 pm to say hey and let him know I was feeling slightly better. I’d napped and just relaxed. It helped immensely not having the pack strapped around my bloated belly. 

So not the most fun day for me. To be honest, my thoughts got pretty low. I questioned what I was doing out here, thought of the people I could be with right now that are elsewhere, and imagined different life scenarios I might be in had I not set out on this journey. Ideas of shortening this trek popped up and what it might be like if I got off altogether. It might sound like I’m being dramatic here and I have been known to be so (in my own way), but it’s really just that the physical seems pretty linked to the mental.

On top of all that, I had a whole mileage scheme in my head for the next little bit of where I hoped to camp each night. This through that off. With not eating though, it looked like I’d still be fine getting to the next resupply point… if I start feeling better, that is, and am able to kick it in to gear again! So yeah, hope some sleep does me good.

(More posts the come, fear not! Just got a bit delayed with some bad cell service 😎)