Miles: 12; Elevation gained: 3,200

Another one of those days that wouldn’t be challenging had we not been wiped out from the day before. That said, 3,200 ft puts it easily in the top 20% of all days on the trail in climbing terms. In short, the Mansfield to Canada portion is no joke – the topography is that of continuous ups and downs, and the surface of the trail itself is ultra rugged. Going down is tougher, as more often than not you’re descending through ledges, wet rock face, roots, loose stones, etc, not a smooth, tramped down dirt path. A lot of hikers will tell you the LT, mile for mile, gives you big bangs for the buck. OK, enough whining.

With about 3 miles to go to Jay Camp, I went ahead of Cliff cuz I was afraid of a repeat of the Tillotson sleep situation, but of course there was only one person there, a guy with a trail moniker of Northbound Ryan – he had done the AT in 2018 in some ridiculous short period, and when he got to the Maine terminus, he turned around started going sobo with a dude named Pappy who was trying be the oldest to do AT, or oldest plus fastest, or something. Anyway, he attracted a lot of Insta followers and Gossamer Gear sponsored him, I guess making him a hiker influencer (hey why not). Now he was trying to do the LT in 10 days with his crazy light 13 lb pack. That would be an average of 28 miles a day. Just to compare, we were carrying about 32 lbs which is pretty average these days, When I was a teen hiker, people carried upwards of 70 lbs. Technology!! In addition to the Gossamer stuff, he had one shirt. Sounds gross, but there was logic: “If I bring three shirts, within 5 days I have three smelly shirts, which is just more weight than one smelly shirt.” I buy that. He also was going “cold” – no stove. No thanks – i need my coffee and a hot meal at night is a nice reward after a log hike. I don’t think he quite made it in 10 days, but the dude could hike. Check him out on Instagram.