Monday, May 2nd

George W. Outerbridge Shelter (1260.0 mi) to Leroy A. Smith Shelter (1276.9 mi)

Hiking Miles: 16.9

Total Ascent: 2,402.2 ft

Total Descent: 1,902.2 ft

Total Grade: 255.3 ft/mi

Steps: 40,570 (1,000,000 overall)

We both ate a cold breakfast and quickly headed on trail at 7 am. Our haste to rush out resulted in each of us forgetting to take our poles, which were leaning against the shelter. It didn’t take long (~50 yards) to realize we were missing a critical piece of equipment (rookie mistake I suppose) and we returned to gather them. I hoped this wasn’t a sign for how the rest of the day would transpire.

The section of trail that was previously closed due to the fire was fortunately re-opened. There was a long stretch of firehose laying on trail most of the way up a steady incline leading to the top of a mountain. Along the way, we saw burnt areas on the ground caused by the fire, and we could definitely smell the scent of charred brush.

About 2 miles into our hike while climbing Blue Mountain, I slipped on a rock and lost my balance. I fell and tumbled about 10 feet down an incline and landed on my right elbow, then subsequently took a direct hit (on a rock) to my right quad. Stevie was ahead of me at the time but he quickly returned to give me a hand. I literally was upside down on the hill, and he laughed at my dilemma once he knew I was okay. He had to move two rocks before helping me to my feet. I could feel my quad stiffening up and we still had another mile of steep rock climbing (the terrain reminded me of our hike up Mount Katahdin last year) so this would be a good indicator for how tight/bad my quad impact was. Fortunately for me, I made it through the one-mile test and my injury was simply a bad “Charlie Horse”.

A few minutes later, we hit another milestone – 400 miles. Stevie was quite creative and formed a “400” marker using our poles and backpacks.

From that point, we eventually hiked a total of 17 miles for the day through relatively flat terrain, and within that time reached our 1,000,000 step milestone on trail (according to Stevie’s app). We arrived at the Leroy Smith Shelter around 4:30 pm just ahead of Full-Tilt and Hardway. Also arriving later was a strong female hiker named “Thank You Laura”, a male hiker she was with named “Trail Breaker” (from Germany), and a hiker named “Forrest” and his dog “Sid”. Thank You Laura and Trail Breaker decided they would tent for the evening and joined a group of hikers camping just up the inbound path a way. We recalled that we actually crossed paths with Thank You Laura while we were in Port Clinton. We had not exchanged names at the time but we did recognize each other.

Stevie and I cooked Fettucini Alfredo with extra ramen for dinner, and had an interesting conversation with Full-Tilt about the 1968 World Series, one of my favorites between the Detroit Tigers (remember he was from Michigan) and the St. Louis Cardinals. I know every player on the the ’68 Tigers and their positions by heart because it was the first World Series that I had read about (inning by inning) as a kid. The crazy thing was I had recited all their names and Full-Tilt was not phased at all that a guy from Boston knew them all 54 years later. He just carried on like the World Series was held last year and that we were die hard Tiger fans.

Anyway, just before calling it a night, I rubbed Icy Hot on my quad, which was still very tight, and video chatted with Teresa.

Oh, and for those interested, here were the starters for the 1968 Detroit Tigers:

1B – Norm Cash, 2B – Dick McAuliffe, 3B – Don Wert, ss – Micky Stanley, LF – Willie Horton, CF – Jim Northup, RF – Al Kaline, C- Bill Freehan, P – Mickey Lolich