February 10
End: US 221
Miles: 33.0
Total: 891.3
A good night spent at Mills Creek, I got up and left, soon arriving at the road. I was kicking myself for not starting this road walk the previous night.
I knew there would be about fifteen miles of roads at the beginning of the day. Those went by slowly, and many of the roads were in fact dirt forest roads. Not only were most of these dirt forest roads, but even the trail after the noted roads was all on dirt roads.
I’m not sure how to explain the agony of walking on dirt roads all day. Roads supposedly lead somewhere, but these are out so far in the middle of nowhere that I walked westward the entire day on them and never saw another person.
In addition to the poor route, the blazing was pathetic as well. What happens when a person walks this route is they get lost in thought for lack of any scenery to stimulate them into thinking about their surroundings. Then, when they look around they wonder if they are still on the trail. Since the blazes in this section only appear a few times each mile, it could be hard to tell. This probably happened to me over a dozen times. Usually I was sure enough to continue, but not always.
I knew that water was going to be scarce, and so I had been conserving since Holton Creek. I still had plenty, but was not enjoying all that weight. Thankfully it was not hot, or I might have drunk too much.
After getting turned around and finding my way, I sloppily set up my tarp in the dark just before US 221.
