Miles: 2,080.9 — Mom and Dad dropped us off for our second shot at the Hundred Mile Wilderness, packs heavy with 10 days of food and a little too much extra gear I didn’t need. We hiked into the dark, testing a few rough campsites before settling on a logging road and cramming into Miles’ tent. It felt good to be back, even if my pack felt like a brick.
Mom and Dad dropped us off at the trail head for our second attempt of the Hundred Mile Wilderness (HMW) around 5pm. For those of you who don’t know, the HMW is a ~100 mile stretch of trail with no resupply point, no accessible town, and few roads (all of the roads are tolled, gated, gravel, and very long). We left with enough food for about ‘10 days.’ Estimating food for anything more than 7 days was hard for me on trail.
Firstly, you’re battling weight. Each day of food you’re adding at least a pound, and if you’re doing it on the cheap its more like two or three. In addition, it wouldn’t all fit in my food bag even if it was only 7 days, and this was 10. Plus, food consumption depends on a few things: weather (if it’s cold and/or raining I usually eat less, even though it should be the opposite), distance (the farther I hike in one day, the more I eat that day), and sleep (the less I sleep the more I eat. Those are things you can’t really plan.
You can say you’ll go 15 miles one day and end up feeling like going 20 or say you’ll do 15 and end up doing 7! You never know how your body will feel. Don’t even get me started on cravings!
Anyway, resupplying was an interesting task. Thankfully, we were privileged enough to have gotten to resupply at a real grocery store while we were home. I left with about 14 pounds of food and accidentally, in my nervousness and excitement, left my old filter and water bags along with a whole bunch of other stuff I didn’t need in my backpack. But I managed to forget my journal. I didn’t pack well, for the one stretch of trail on which I should have. But there was no turning back in this dead cell service zone… So, we marched forward toward the dark.
From the last time we hiked this 7 mile stretch I remembered about 3 places that looked like they would make okay camping sites. One near a pond, that turned out to be just a rock covered in a thin layer of dirt and grass. One on a tote road, too hilly. And one on a logging road, still on a hill but we managed. After trying two tent sites already and it being dark now, we decided to just share Miles’ tent for the night. We ate snacks instead of a full dinner since we’d only walked about 4 or 5 miles and then went to sleep. It felt good to be back in the tent. I slept well.