So we went to the Standing bear hostel and planned on stopping for a quick snack, maybe lunch, and then keep moving. But it was so wonderful there we all fell in love. The other girl we are hiking with already decided she was gonna stay the night there but the rest of us were just gonna pass through. After hanging round for a little bit we found out that the next night they were throwing a huge party. They had 50 pounds of pork they were smoking for over 24 hours, along with tons of other food. That convinced two more in our group to stay. They were just going to take a zero and meet up with us at the next town. Most of us were dragging our feet when it came time to leave (all but austin) and no one really wanted to leave. But then I came up with the worlds best idea :)
I came up with the plan to have the hostel slack-pack us up the trail and make it back in time for dinner. So what I mean by slack-packing is we stayed the night at the hostel that night and in the morning we toke enough food and water to get us through the day but left all our other gear. Then we had them drive us 20 miles up the trail and we hiked south the rest of the day until we made it back to the hostel for the party. Then the next day they took us back to where we started the day before and went north. One of our friends however pulled a muscle in his leg so he skipped that day and took our pack into hot spring so we were able to slack-pack the next day too.
The top of Austin's pack detaches and so does his wasteband and it turns into a nice small day-pack. Everyone else just wore their empty packs but we were able to fit all our stuff in a tiny little waste pack that austin wore. Lucky me, I didn't have to carry anything :) we tried to switch off during the day but even the little pack made me hike slower so I lost pack privileges. Hiking without our packs was a blast tho! We were practically frolicking through the woods, it felt so good. We were able to hike the 20 miles soo much faster then our normal hiking speed, it didn't hurt that we were actually running down the hills. Everyone at the hostel was so impressed to see us so soon. They figured we be back around 6 or 7, we showed up at 3.
The party that night was amazing. Wonderful food! They even had a bluegrass band come and play. The next morning they dropped us off at the gap. Two of our friends asked them to take them straight to hot springs because they got hurt and weren't feeling up to the 14 mile hike that day. But the great thing was they took our packs into hot springs so we got to slack pack again!
In town we stayed at the oldest running hostel on the trial run by the original owner. The house was built in 1875 and was soo amazing. The man that run it was named elmer and he had two guys working for him. Every night and morning they cooked a huge gourmet vegetarian meal for everyone (for an extra charge) we only ate there for breakfast because the two nights we stayed there we had other plans for dinner. A friend we have made on the trail named, Chuck-town, had a bunch of his friends meet him in town. They got a cabin and invited all of us to come hang out or stay if we wanted. They made us a huge spaghetti dinner one night but we stayed the night in the hostel. The next day we were planning on leaving but most of us didn't feel well so we decided to stay an extra day and make it two zero days instead of one. We hung out at the outfitters cause austin was interested in getting a new pack. I wanted to ask the guy helping ask a question about my pack so I brought it in to show him. After looking at both of us with our packs he said in his opinion im the one that was in need for a new pack. So he fitted me for a new one and it was amazing how much better it felt! I didn't want to spend the money but my friend phlegm said is its going to make ever step for the next 1800 miles that much better then it was well worth it. And he was right. Later that afternoon Chuck-town picked us up and took us back to the cabin and they had a huge cook out with burgers, hotdogs, corn-on-the-cob and much more. We had a great time and hit the trail the next morning.
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