Waking up, I immediately noticed a lack of energy from not eating my ramen last night. Another hiker pointed out that, with my dinner of Mac and Cheese and Ramen, I'm basically carbo-loading every evening. Which is not a bad way to prepare for a hike.
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I got started on a 22 mile day this morning around 7:30, continuing my ascent of Three Ridges Mountain, an arduous climb up 2100 feet over 3.3 miles, featuring rock fields and short rock scrambles. The top, though, had a nice view, and I stopped for a break there, probably for too long given I still had 19 miles to go. This would be a recurring theme throughout the day.
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I managed to get started hiking before 8 today, which was great since I spent a fair amount of time not actually progressing down the trail today.
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I decided I wanted to get back to the trailhead by 8:30. I'd have preferred sooner, to get an earlier (and thus, cooler) start to a day that starts with a long uphill, but that's a reasonable compromise since I'm starting an hour away from the trailhead. An 8:30 start meant leaving at 7:30.
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Our shuttle driver up to the trailhead showed up about 15 minutes early, before we were ready, so we wound up rushing a bit to get everything we weren't taking on today's slackpack stowed in the motel's storage room. We wouldn't realize it until later, but this resulted in us forgetting Beast's towel in the room.
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