I arrived back in Chester due to the glorious american public transport, 3 hours late and only because I hitchhiked the last 65 miles.

 

I was so pissed about the bus that simply didn’t showed up and the company not picking up the phone that I went straight to bed after I set up my tent behind the church where we slept already 3 weeks ago.

 

Due to the jetlag I woke up at 5 in the morning and had to watch some Netflix before I could go to the store to buy a gascanister for my stove.

 

At 8h17 I was back on trail, due to the store which opened a bit earlier and a super quick hitch 🙂

 

It is amazing how fast my body was able to forget about the last 3 months because everything was hurting again.

 

 

Sore places: left, right an the back of the hips, both shoulders on top and where the strap touches your chest and between my legs which hurts the most.

 

In adition to that just before lunchtime my stomach sarted to hurt too.

 

I reached a thermal geysir and wanted to cook in the shade but I had to lay down while setting up the stove because I felt so sick.

 

I slept for over a hour half on the trail until a woman woke me up with her scream because she tought something happened.

 

I felt slightly better, ate something and continued my way untilI reached the boiling lake. Wonder why he got this name? I tested it on the Geysir and the Lake and burned myself twice…

 

 

Just after the lake I saw a bear playing with a tree on the trail. Even after yelling at him he moved towards me, luckily we went past ümy and I was able to sneak behind him to continue my trail.

 

I had lunch next to a small creek to avoid the scent of food next to my campsite.

 

 

I overestimated the pain which the sore place between my legs would cause and so I fell into the night before I could finally set up my tent. After hanging my food in a tree I fell asleep righ away.

 

But I woke up several times to scare away deers who might have been bears who could have stolen my food.

 

 

 

 

I left my tent at 6h20 to start the day with an amazing pace 🙂

 

 

For breakfast at 9h30 I had done 11 miles and the legs were still good! The sore places havent gotten better but they will get better the next few days…hopefully…

 

Just before 12 I reached an RV park where I bought an icecream and a coke and had a rest for 5 minutes before heading out to my designated lunchplace. A subway cave.

 

 

 

An hour later I reached the cave, where they had toilets, pick nick tables and a spigot 🙂

 

 

I had Mac and cheese before walking trough the cave. Nice and cool but unspectacular, not the biggest one nor the longest at only 200 meters with one small room. But it was still worth the side trip.

 

 

The next watersource was the last one for 22 miles, so I took the steep sidetrip to go down to get 5 liters and have dinner at the creek.

 

Right when I started the climb back to the trail I saw a baby rattlesnake… and I’m pissed that they still exist so far up north.

 

My sore places were killing me but I wanted to reach a spot where I am supposed to have service.

 

Just after a place where I got amazing Trailmagic my phone told me thaz I reached a new steprecord. 3 miles prior to the place I wanted to stay.

 

I met Stardust whom I knew from Instagram and because of the mountainlion which is active right now around this area we hiked the 3 miles together and camped next to each other.

 

 

So far we havent seen the animal but something is walking around our tents but we cannot see anything neither can we scare it away. At least it seems to be smaller than a mountainlion 🙂

 

Spoiler!

 

We survived 🙂