An International Appalachian Trail Reunion

Even though we hiked pretty late last night, we still managed to get up this morning at 6am. I was eager to get into town so we could spend the day eating and resting. Which we’ve been fantasizing about for literally six days now. All of us were packed up by 6:45am and walking.

The trail this morning was nice and easy with only a couple small climbs. But the elevation gain felt like absolutely nothing. The time flew by and then the rest of the day was almost entirely downhill. We even got out to some dirt roads and were walking along those for most of the remainder of the day. I got service as well for the first time in a while. So I was able to multitask and use my phone while we road walked on dirt roads. I even got to talk to my dad on the phone for a while which really helped to pass the time. I ended up talking to my mom on the phone for a while too after that as I continued on the road into town.

Much of the morning was spent walking along dirt roads.

We got to the road where you could hitch into Lander right around 9:45am. That was a lot earlier than I originally expected and I was really proud of us for having an early start to the day. We had caught up with another hiker named Neil Bob around this time. Then the four of us started hitching into Lander together. Sidequest had texted us too saying that he had just gotten into town. Clearly he had been about five or so miles ahead of us last night. So we never would’ve caught him unless we had done a nearly 40 mile day. He did a 44 mile day yesterday which explains why he was so far ahead of us.

When we got to the road you could hitch from we noticed that it was a pretty fast road. It wasn’t going to be the easiest hitch. There had been some comments talking about the road and saying that it couod take a while to get to Lander. Lucky for us it only took about 15 or so minutes and then a girl pulled over. Her car was filled to the brim with stuff, but she moved it all around to try to fit us inside. And somehow four of us fit into her tiny car, which was loaded with stuff. She was super nice and curious about what we were doing. And she drove us into Lander and brought us right to McDonald’s. All of us have been talking about about McDonald’s breakfast for the entire last 24 hours. And we got to town within 10 minutes of breakfast stopping at McDonald’s, which was perfect.

As soon as we got to town we feasted on McDonald’s!

When we got into the McDonald’s all of us were so excited to order that we didn’t even notice that Sidequest was also in the McDonald’s! It took us a couple minutes to look up and realize that he was sitting right there on the phone. It was so nice to see him again after a couple days of being without him. And then all of us got McDonald’s and sat together and hung out. The group was officially back, baby.

All of us hung out for a long time and tried to figure out what to do next. I managed to book a pretty cheap room in town, which was just a couple buildings down from the McDonald’s. Then our plan was just to get our chores done for the day. All I really wanted to do was eat a bunch of food, do some writing, and rest.

We left McDonald’s a little bit after 11am and headed over to The Pronghorn Inn where we would be staying the night. And the lady even let us check in before noon, which was awesome. Then we all headed to the room to drop our bags. And after that, we walked down the street to go to the local gear shop. I’ve heard that the gear shop was awesome and it even did darn tough exchange. So I went to check about that. I had one pair of darn tops with holes in them that were clean and one pair that was dirty. They took the clean pair but I have to wash the other pair. So I’ll just come back to darn tough exchange the other pair tomorrow, hopefully.

The gear shop had all kinds of snacks so I got a few. Then I went back to the motel to shower. It felt so nice to get clean after this last section of trail. I had to do a whole lot of scrubbing to get all of the dirt off my legs and ankles. And I was surprised to see how cut up I was from the wind river high route. I had scrapes all over my legs from the last few days.

Wild Iris, a fantastic gear shop in Lander.

Apparently, some of our friends were already In town at the local bar. So after I showered I headed over there to meet up with everyone. At the bar was Dirty and two hikers Barefoot and Lights out. I hadn’t seen the two of them since Luna hostel in glacier national park. It was so cool to see them again. All of us hung out there and had a drink and grabbed some food.

9 Lives posing with some sloshys.

After that, I decided to head back to the room to relax. It was really nice seeing everyone and hanging out, but I had so much stuff I wanted to get done and I really just wanted to let my body rest. I stayed at the room for a while and got some voice recording stuff done. Then I headed back out with 9 Lives and Syrup to go grab some dinner.

The massive salad that I got for lunch.

Side Quest was still at the brewery with a bunch of other hikers. We hung out with them briefly and then went to the restaurant next door to get a good meal in. I got some loaded cheese fries and southwestern eggrolls. 9 Lives got this massive pretzel that was like two times as big as her head and came with tons of dipping sauces. Our eyes were all so much bigger than our stomachs. While we were eating, Sparkle came over and I got to talk with her for a while. It’s so cool seeing her again after having hiked together for so long last year.

Syrup, 9 Lives, and I, went out for dinner. And 9 Lives got this unbelievably big soft pretzel.

After we finished eating dinner we wound up hanging out with everyone at the brewery for a while. This is such an awesome bubble of hikers and I’m so excited to be around all of these people. We’ve been on alternate trails for so long that we really haven’t been seeing a lot of hikers. It feels really good to be back surrounded by hikers again.

Sparkle and I, reunited at last!

Everyone was drinking and having so much fun but all I wanted was rest. After so many days out in the wilderness I knew that my body just wanted to lay down and relax. So after a while, I headed back to the room with 9 Lived. We stopped at the gas station down the street for some drinks. Then we planned to do our laundry back at the room. At the gas station in town I got two f’real milkshakes which I was so excited about. I was absolutely obsessed with those on the Florida trail last year.

I couldn’t resist getting 2 f’real milkshakes at the gas station.

The f’real milkshake machine.

Then a few other hikers came to our room to spend the night. We had this whole extra pullout couch, so it seemed wasteful not to fill it with hikers. All of us got our laundry together and managed to get the load in right before the laundry room closed for the night. But that meant that I had to sit down by the laundry room for over an hour waiting for it to finish. Because we couldn’t risk getting locked out of the laundry room and having all of our stuff locked inside.

By the time the laundry was done it was after 10pm. I was so tired and ready to go to bed. Plus, I really needed to get a lot of writing done. But I didn’t get anything done because we were hanging out with all these hikers. Which I love and I’m grateful for, but I also do need to get stuff done every now and then. So once I was back in the room, I put my laundry away and managed to get a little bit of stuff done on my phone. I was so tired though. So after writing very briefly I just rolled over and called it a night.