18.31km

Today I managed to get up early, at 5 and started getting ready right away. It should be a lot of easy trails and road walks so I hope to hit my highest mileage yet. I had an extra serving of oatmeal for breakfast, with a side of electrolytes and an Advil so that I could really just power through. I have my sights on the tent platforms on a later trail, if I can make it to them tonight then it will line up to stay at a cabin tomorrow. This is some solid motivation!

Before I set off, I quickly turned on my service and data to see if I had any messages. I am still trying to conserve my battery because I don’t have a reliable power source so I've only been turning it on a few times a day. I had posted in a bunch of hiking groups that I was doing my thru hike and a guy from one of them reached out to send me an extreme weather warning. It’s supposed to start raining today and have 40-80mm an hour until sometime on Saturday. I asked dad and a friend to confirm since they both use radar to track the weather then set off hoping it wasn't overly accurate. 

I'm not sure what I'll do if the rainfall warning is real and I have to jump off trail. There are quite a few inns in Witless Bay but I wanted to get more distance in today, and there seems to be very little near the trail for quite some time after this community. Don, the other thru hiker I met going the opposite way, gave me an email of a guy running an Airbnb who will do pick ups at trail heads so I have that option too. 

I had the rest of Mickeleens path to consider what I wanted to do about the incoming rain. You can see by the following photos that I did actually manage to get up and going earlier than previous days, I got to enjoy the last bits of the sunrise along the coast.

The first day of rain on the trail wasn’t horrible even though I was cold, and it took until well into the next morning for everything to dry. But the second time it rained, it was much heavier and I was quite frankly miserable all day. I was cold at night and it took the majority of the next day for everything to dry and I was cranky until it did. At the end of the day I am doing this hike for me and me alone. I want to enjoy it and I want it to be an experience I will remember happily. I don’t want to remember slipping and falling down a muddy hill, and being soaking wet and cold and miserable for three days. I started leaning heavily towards jumping off trail for the forecasted rain.

I realized that my pace was slower than I had hoped for as well. I had hoped to make it to a set of tent platforms on a later trail tonight. If I did this, it meant I would make it to a cabin tomorrow. Multiple people have told me about this hunting/fishing cabin that is left unlocked for hikers to use. I was excited for it because I knew it had a woodstove and I could be extra cozy for a night. IT would give me an opportunity to properly dry and air out some gear. Plus I could sit in a chair for dinner and be out of the wind and stay warm.

However, if I didn’t hit the platforms tonight then I wouldn’t hit the cabin tomorrow. I contemplated rushing through everything today, Getting cold and wet tonight, suffering through the rainfall, but then being able to stay at the cabin to dry off and warm up. However, I still have no reliable power source so if something does go wrong I’m kind of stuck.

By the time I made it to Witless Bay, I had sent off a text to dad, a friend, and a trail angel (who had given me a lot of campsite recommendations in preparation). I told them all that I thought getting off trail tonight was my best option. Since I had such limited battery, they thankfully did the research for me. Unfortunately, if I continued hiking on tonight and camped somewhere, there would be nowhere along the trail for me to stay tomorrow to dry off. The winds tonight are supposed to be 70 km an hour and where I wouldn’t hit the tent platforms, I wouldn’t know if I’d have anywhere sheltered to stay. For all I know, the tent platforms aren't sheltered either. They look further inshore than the ones on White Horse but I can't guarantee it.

Ultimately, I did not want to go far off the trail to stay anywhere so there seemed to be only one option for me. The Whale Guest House in Mobile is right on the trail and hopefully has availability. Since the trail I had to finish this morning was an easy one, and then a road walk to another easy trail, I had some time to get to it.

On my way to my next trail, a car pulled over and the woman yelled out did you make out okay? I must have looked as confused as I was because the woman laughed and explained she was one of the women I had scared last night! Apparently by the time she got off trail she regretted not giving me her number in case I needed anything overnight. She was glad to see I was okay and even happier to hear I was jumping off trail for the night with the incoming storm. She was on her way to do this trail with the same women as last night and offered me a ride. Of course I declined, but was very happy to have her check on me. A lot of people have said they are worried about me out here alone, but this is the treatment I’ve been getting every day on the trail. Everyone wants to help me :)

I'm currently writing this, catching up on all my blog posts, while snuggled up in the guest house. Thankfully she had availablity and she is letting me stay the night and decide tomorrow morning if I want to stay another night. It is a super cute little suite right on the trail and designed for hikers. I don’t like the idea of taking a full zero day tomorrow, but I like the idea of being soaking wet and cold for multiple days even less.

Bonus points if you know what this cool guy is: