Orginally planned to do a short day since my knee had been hurting and decline of Blood Mountain only made it worse, but there were rumors that the water in the hostel at Neel’s gap had been making people sick so I decided to push on until the next shelter with Gazelle who by the way forgot to fill up on water at the Mountain Crossings store there so I gave her some of my water. Little did I know at the time, I was sick, coming down with norovirus and likely gave it to her. I still today do not know where I had gotten it. Anyways we split later since we were heading the same place and I was going a lot slower. I did not make it to the next shelter though. I was exhusted (IT-band still not resolved) on CrowRock Mountain with little water (less than 8 oz), for it was a dry stretch. After setting up tent in the worst place for a storm, I started to feel nauseous and threw up everything. I thought that was going to be it, but later around 11pm when it was storming up there, I sat up, noticed that my sleeping bag had gotten wet from water that had gotten in and not even seconds later, I was throwing up on everything…clothes, sleeping bag, tent uncontrollably. The rain getting in was my fualt due to laziness setting up my tent incorrectly at a slant. The rain was a blessing and a curse though. Curse because almost all of my clothes were wet and waiting until morning was the only option at that point. Blessing since the rain likely covered up the throwup smell for any surrounding predators. I cannot think of a time in my life I had suffered more. It was brutal. Spotty service, hardly any water, too dangerous to hike down in the dark, down a mountain, in a storm. I was deperate. I remember thinking the words, “I will beg on all fours for someone to pick me up.”
Day 3 (Mile: 18.9 -> 36.5):
