Spartan Hike - Day 10

 Hiker, and co-founder of American Spartan Inc, Captain Tommy Muir, continues to keep us updated on the day-to-day of the 425+ mile Spartan Hike, via emails spent from his phone.

"Day 10 brought with it another healthy dose of blue skies and sun light creeping over the mountains. Due to our eight days of rain experience, we are a very well oiled machine when it comes to our morning routine and we don't waste a lot of time. But this morning was different, at the end of today's 20.2 miles awaited hot showers and real beds for our use and there was a noticeable extra spring in everyone's step as we were eager to get there.

At this point, including our day of driving we were all at a minimum of 11 days sans a shower with some including myslef at 12 due to not showering the morning of our departure. As stated earlier, we've all gone at least twice as long without a shower in far worse places. However, there's no denying the obvious fact that once you see the light is at the end of the tunnel you just want to get there and we were ready to get there. We quickly broke down and stowed our DRY gear, heated up water for breakfast and hit the road 20 minutes prior to what we had planned. We hammered out today's miles with large strides and even larger smiles, including two steep and long climbs. The first was good times, she measured out at 2.5 miles and gained over 2,000 feet in elevation. Number two was a much tougher customer at only 1.6 miles but gaining close to 1,500 feet of elevation.

We made it to Ragged Point Resort in time for a late lunch but before sitting down to the meal we decided to take full advantage of the warm water that the showers were kicking out. Smelling good and clean for the first time in a while, we enjoyed a nice lunch. Afterwards, we went our own direction to catch up on the news, sleep or taking a side hike. We all met up again for a phenomenal dinner that included a couple pitchers of ice cold beer from our new friend Matt, who also gave us the rooms free of charge. After a very delicious and filling meal, we retreated to the friendly confines of our warm and dry rooms for a nights sleep in comfortable beds with pillows."

         Tommy Muir