FKT: Nick Fowler - Ozark Trail (MO) - 2022-04-03

• Used an iPhone 13 for pictures / time stamps and a Garmin InReach Mini for live tracking. 
• Cached food every 30ish miles. 

3/31 

• Start @ 6:58am
• It rained hard the previous couple days, stream crossings are high. Quite a few were waist deep. 
• Rained in the afternoon.
• Set up camp in the middle of the trail at mile 65, just past midnight. 

4/1 

• Up and moving by 4:15am
• Water bottle froze in my shoulder pocket at 6am, which also means my water filter is probably toast. Luckily a lot of these streams out here are spring fed. 
• Saw two people hiking at mile 93. First people I’ve seen on the trail. 
• Missed a turn just before dark. Stayed next to the road when should have went to the left. Ran back and across to make up lost time. 
• 60 mile day, camped at mile 125 just past midnight. 

4/2 

• Up and moving by 4:15am
• I must have been disoriented or still half asleep because I started off going in the wrong direction. Went 1.5 miles backwards before I realized it. Lame. 
• Started taking my shoes and socks off for stream crossings. Feet are looking pretty rough. First time I’ve had blisters in a long time. 
• Bee Fork crossing appeared to be at least chest deep. Had to go down stream till it was shallow on half the river, wade the shallow part and climb up on a blown down tree to cross the deep part.
• More blisters. 5 total blisters now. 
• Saw a couple more groups of hikers. It’s clearly the weekend. 
• I’m so tired that when I come to a stream crossing that is passable on rocks without getting your feet wet, it takes me a couple minutes to decide which rocks to go over. I find myself just staring at the streams in some sort of a daze. 
• Made it to mile 171. Moving around 1 mile an hour. Too slow. Stopped to sleep for an hour at 11pm.

4/3 

• So tired, nearly dozing off while walking so at 4:20am I went back to sleep for an hour. Freaking rooster wouldn’t stop crowing. I don’t think I got any sleep.
• Must have gotten a second wind. Back to running a lot today! 
• InReach died at some point? I stopped to inspect some pinky toe damage/blisters and noticed the InReach was off. Charged it.
• Shouldn’t have stopped to address the pinky toe. Only 20 miles from the end, and now I’m super stiff and slow. Took forever to get moving at a decent pace again. 
• Feel like I keep having déjà vu.
• Hot on these ridge-lines. No shade.
• The Courtois Creek (this thing is a river…. Don’t let “creek” deceive you) was in an impassable state. Not sure how deep it was exactly but ended up having to swim across it. It was so cold it was hard to breathe. The current was so strong it took me down stream nearly 150 feet before I was able to grab onto a tree on the other side and pull myself out. Lost my hat, a headlamp, and both water bottles in the river. Luckily this was only 4-5 miles from the end. 
• Finished @ 9:13pm