Early Monday morning, a trail friend, Two Mile, drove me to the southern terminus of the Ozark Trail. Since the trail cannot actually be accessed by car, I walked the mile down this dirt road to the official start of the trail. At 6:51am on the morning of April 25th, I started my Northbound thru hike of the Ozark Trail. The morning was beautiful and overcast. Initially I felt like I was making good miles, but according to my garmin, I was going a lot slower than I thought. I kept trucking along and tried to only take short breaks here and there for food or water. I was doing a decent job at keeping the calorie intake consistent and making sure I drank water and occasional electrolytes. A little after 4:30pm, I hit the end of the first map section. I was super confused because my garmin said I had only walked just shy of 20 miles, but according to the map I was 29 miles in. I had to do some investigating, but realized that with interval tracking, it only measures a straight line distance between each point made every 10 minutes. I was definitely relieved knowing that I wasn’t going as slow as I thought. Because of the interval tracking the distance will not line up with the actual Ozark Trail distance, but you can see that the line follows the trail.
As I kept hiking, it started to rain. I threw on my rain jacket and kept hiking. It kept coming down harder so I decided to stop and pull my emergency bivvy out and crawl inside. It was half helpful because myself and my gear were wet. I hid out until 10:30pm when the rain had let up. I decided to night hike for a few hours. I decided to stop around 3am and sleep for a couple more hours. Less than an hour later, it started to drizzle again. I tried to get back in my bivvy which was half successful. In the morning, basically everything was wet. I was just hoping for sun at some point to try and dry everything out.
My miles on day 2 felt slower, but I was still making decent time. It was rather chilly for most of the day and hiked in my rain jacket and fleece a significant amount. Finally after 5 the sun came out and I was able to semi dry my gear. I hiked for another 3 hours before deciding to take a couple hour nap. I did some night hiking again. I’m fairly confident I ran into a couple feral hogs while I was hiking. The large dark animal definitely caught me off guard. I went back to sleep for a couple more hours.
On day 3, I caught the sunrise which meant the sun was actually out. I hiked through the Current River sections which was great. It was so beautiful and may be my favorite section of the whole trail. Some of the water crossings were refreshing and felt good on my achilles that was starting to ache a bit. I also spotted an elk and several wild horses at the same time which was amazing. The afternoon gave way to a more wooded, less-scenic stretch of the trail. I was making relatively good time and was feeling decent despite the miles I’d put in. I hiked a little further into the night before going to sleep. I planned to wake up and night hike, but when I did all my gear had been covered in condensation and was frozen. My quilt had a layer of ice on it, my water was frozen, my shoes were frozen, my socks were frozen. I decided I didn’t want to deal with that and slept a full night. I was bummed I didn’t get those extra miles in but I think I really needed it.
Once the sun came up on day 4 it was so much warmer. I hit the halfway point mid morning. I also walked in circles for a part of the morning because the trail just seemed to disappear and there were no blazes or signs of the trail. I started having a few blisters pop up which was frustrating because one of the things I forgot to bring was a couple safety pins to drain any blisters when they came up so they didn’t get out of control. Initially it wasn’t too bad but I knew it would get worse. I hiked a little later into the night again but took another few hours to sleep. I was tired and my feet were swollen so I tried to give it some extra time to let the swelling go down.
On Friday I could slowly start to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but it still felt like I had so far. As the day went on my feet were getting worse. I had more blisters popping up that I couldn’t drain and the swelling in my feet were getting worse. I tried to soak my feet a couple times and was finally able to slightly drain the blisters which hurt like crazy. I tried to tape them but it didn’t help too much. Most of the blisters were filling up again. In the afternoon I walked into a burn area. I’m assuming it was a prescribed burn, but there weren’t any signs of warning about the burn area. The sky was beautiful as the sun went down and I was trying to stay focused as I headed into the night. I was drinking caffeine and electrolytes and periodically taking ibuprofen to help with the pain in my feet. I took a couple hour nap at the beginning of the night and then kept walking again to get some more miles down. I was super tired and my mind was definitely not in it and my feet were in a lot of pain at this point and there was not much I could do. A couple hours before sunrise I decided to take another nap.
Saturday I was planning on finishing. I was down to 30 miles left. I just had to keep myself moving. I had so many blisters and my feet were so swollen that it was pulling the skin tight. I was just counting down the miles. I saw a lot more day hikers and overnighters because it was the weekend. Their smiles and energy kept me going even though I didn’t really stop to talk. I ran into a dad and daughter only a couple miles from the Courtois River. I asked them how the crossing was and they said it was totally doable and gave me some pointers. They ended up figuring out I was on an FKT attempt and were so sweet and encouraging. The river crossing was a lot easier than I expected. A couple ladies were on the other side of the river and gave suggestions on where to cross. It did go up to right below my ribs for about 2 seconds where the current was quick in the middle. I tried to remain calm and not fight the momentum and just move with the current to the other side. After I was across I only had 5 miles to do. My feet were in so much pain but it was only five miles and I knew in just a couple hours it would all be over. The sun went down, the miles were ticking down and just a couple hundred feet from the finish I hear my friend, Two Mile, yell my name. I had to be close enough he saw my headlamp. I started running as The Final Countdown played on my phone. In a few seconds I was at the end and basically flopped over on the ground.
The trail gave me a run for my money, but I am so thankful for the experience it brought and I hope to see other people get out and hit the Ozark Trail.