Climbing up to Max Patch

May 19, 2025

I slept in under around 8am and packed up. Jon brought us coffee to the picnic table outside. We left around 0930 and made another Walmart stop since Spoons lost his toothbrush and toothpaste. We got dropped off at I40 and had another big climb of 5000ft ahead of us. Spoons and I hiked 12 miles together. We chatted about our lives and just about every topic you can think of. It was really nice getting to chat and open up about things, he’s been the first person on track that I’ve shared a good bit with.

We met a few hikers along the way, and I met Don’t Know, who is obsessed with Bowen now. Bo spotted 2 bear cubs in the distance, and Spoons and I watched at they ran over the ridge… whether they were running from Bo or 2 smelly hikers, we will never know. Later down the trail, we saw a little mouse scamper across the trail.

We hiked 16 miles today, which was impressive, seeing as we started around 10am this morning. It was Bo’s first day back, and we had lunch on wet logs around mile 10. We met some section hikers, and the girl had the same hat as me. Spoons went ahead for the last few miles to the shelter. Bo and I submitted Max Patch, which had 360 views on a plateau. There were mountain Laurel tunnels followed by streams. I refilled water before going to the shelter and had to sit in a puddle because I couldn’t kneel. There was some trail magic at the shelter–they had snacks and were taking our trash for us! I had some potatoes and ramen for dinner (the 1st of many… many rambombs) and a snickers. I ran my food bags up the trail to the bear box, then it started raining, and I somehow managed to run back to my tent after hiking all day.