Day 7

Miles: 19.1
Total Miles: 116.5

I spent the entire day on auto-pilot dreaming about Zaxby's. After a pretty successful morning's hike I started to take it easy coming up to Albert Mountain which was a terrible mistake in terms of making good time. The mountain stands at just a shade over a mile high and the climb to get to the summit was incredibly steep and rocky. I passed a southbounder on the way up who was a seasoned thru-hiker. He made a comment about how I'd be used to rocks like that by the time I got to Vermont and Maine.

I was just coming down the mountain when I heard a weird rustling noise in the clearing off to my left. I ran up around a small bend only to see the black and brown butt of a medium-sized bear scampering down the hillside away from me. This gave me a lot more confidence in all those adages about "they're more afraid of you than you are of them." My first bear sighting was peaceful and at a good and safe distance.

I also got my first run-in with "trail angels" today. Angels are people, usually old thru-hikers, who like to help out those presently attempting to hike the AT. This angel was in the form of a box of goodies from "Mango," a 2001 thru hiker, containing baggies of cookies, bottled water, Nestea, and A&W rootbeer. So I sat down with a man in his 60s and we toasted our rootbeers to "Mango" whoever he/she was.

I met up with Sarah here in Franklin, NC at around 6. She blasted the heat and drove me to Zaxby's as per my two requests. Now we're in a hotel with warm water and more than comfortable beds. I'm probably going to take tomorrow off due to swelling in my feet and pain in my knees/shoulders. This fits in fine with my schedule though as I'll be done with time to spare if I can keep this pace going.