Day 75: Daleville to Wilson Creek Shelter

11.2 miles

Left at 9am after breakfast. 18 miles to go today. Caught up with Shutterbug & Smiles, they have been hiking together for a few days. Saw Jeremiah, too...pretty impressive since he was partying pretty hard at the mexican restaurant yesterday. We ate a snack at the first shelter, where a group of college kids had spent the night on the first night of their section hike. They had a huge tent that must have weighed 30 pounds, gallon jugs of water, and one kid even had a trumpet.

Soon after morning break we came to a fast moving creek with no footbridge and no big rocks to hop across. This marks the first time I've had to take off my shoes to cross a stream! It is a real pain to take  shoes off/cross creek/dry feet/put shoes back on, so I'm glad I don't have to do it very often. The water was really cold but I managed not to fall in. There were a couple other creek crossings later that day, but one had rocks strategically placed across it, and the other I was able to go upstream and walk across a fallen branch. The streams are full of water because of all the rain we've had recently - there are even streams where nothing is marked in the AT Guide - nice to have water so readily available.

Saw a huge black snake slithering across the trail. It was long - probably 5 feet or so - and I gave a little yelp when I saw it. It's so surprising to see movement on the trail just a few feet from where my feet are. But I'm glad it wasn't a rattlesnake - I've been paranoid about seeing one ever since Greyhound saw a very large rattlesnake on the trail.

Started to feel like rain about 2pm, and I heard thunder about 2:30. I knew I was pretty close to the 2nd shelter so picked up my pace to get there. Literally seconds before the bottom dropped out of the sky, I reached the shelter. Jeremiah, Shutterbug, Smiles, Owl, and Phoenix are all here, waiting for the storm to pass. The storm lasted about 90 minutes, and when it was over we decided to just spend the night here. It was too late after the storm to hike another 7.4 miles to the next shelter (and we'd get there too late to have a spot in the shelter). Plus my knee has been hurting all day and locked up a few times today.

People poured into the shelter, everyone is getting back on the trail after Trail Days. M80 & Trooper are here, so is Big Yankee, Roughneck, Tahlal, lots of others. Jeremiah decided to move on, so did Rainbow Braid, Finder, and a couple others.

Day 68: Pine Swamp Shelter to War Spur Shelter

12.5 miles

Well, it did get below freezing last night and I slept like crap. II was a little better once I put on my puffy jacket, but I still had the whole body shivers a few times during the night. OWL & I both slept in late and left camp about 10:30. 

Harder day today than yesterday, even though yesterday was a higher mileage day. Lots of rocks on the trail today; the unevenness makes for very slow walking, and their hardness hurts my feet. We also saw snow flurries - TWICE - so I am second guessing the decision to send home my warm bag. The seams on my new liner socks hurt my pinky toes (even turned inside out). But - I made it to the shelter fine. Phoenix is here again tonight - said she was planning to go to the next shelter but it is at a higher elevation (ie, colder) so she decided to stay here for the night. And Etch-A-Sketch showed up at the shelter with her dad (who lives nearby) and her dog, SamWise, with homemade chocolate chip cookies! They went very well with my beef stroganoff (which was part of a care package put together by some awesome coworkers). They sent me lots of goodies which AWE is sending a bit at a time - I'm very thankful for their thoughts and support!

It is supposed to be cold again tonight, so I am tenting in hopes that it will keep me a little warmer.

 

 

Day 67: Pearisburg to Pine Swamp Shelter

19.7 miles

So sad to leave AWE but told her - this is a joyful thing - I am so glad I got to see you and I'll be home in less than a month for our break. (OWL & AT had a 10 day vacation with family planned before we started planning our hike, so I'm taking that time to go home and relax).

OWL wanted to get dropped off at the road furthest away from Pearisburg, but I wanted to get dropped off where we got off the trail. I told her - look, I'm not exactly a purist...but if I'm going to skip sections of the AT I want to be doing something fun. (For instance, riding bikes on the Virginia Creeper trail instead of hiking that section on the AT). I don't want to take shortcuts just because we can, and I especially don't want to yellowblaze (get a ride by car); nicknamed because of the yellow lines in the middle of the road)  just so it makes our day a little easier. I think she was a little annoyed, but she got out of the car with me at Cross Ave (630.4), exactly where we left the trail.

My purist efforts had us:

  a) get lost for a block or two in Pearisburg (much to the chagrin of the neighborhood dogs)

  b) walk by some sort of weird chemical plant that smelled like hydrochloric acid and made it hard to breathe for miles

We also got to the "unnamed paved road" just as Nova's slackpack ride was driving away! So we missed the opportunity to slackpack 20+ miles. But, nothing to do about it now.

Big climb out of Pearisburg (this is usually the case when going out of a town) but it wasn't too bad. We had planned to stop for lunch at Rice Field Shelter, and just before we got to the shelter we heard a whistle through the trees above us. Sounded weird - we both heard it - but there wasn't anything around. As we were leaving the shelter we saw a glider fly overhead! It was really neat. We saw at least two different gliders, and they passed overhead about 12-15 times throughout the day.

We made consistently good time (2 mph) and got to the shelter about 6:15. I really like hiking with OWL - it keeps me consistently moving since I am trying to either keep up with her or stay ahead of her.

We are behind the group we have been hiking with because of our mini vacation. So we are here with new people tonight. Phoenix (with dyed red hair) is a colonel's wife and a cancer survivor who had a fire built and set mouse traps set around the shelter. Really nice lady. Shaman is a fellow nerd who was fun to talk to. And Professor, who liked to ask questions (much to OWL's annoyance). OWL has decided to not tell people she is a physical therapist (because they start asking her questions about their ailments). But she's not very good at being vague about it, either. Professor asked her what she did, she said "I'm currently unemployed". Then he said, well what did you do before hiking? "I worked", she replied. It was pretty funny to watch them both get frustrated with each other. (Eventually she gave in and told him).

It is supposed to get below freezing tonight. I hope I am warm enough.