Tag: thruhike

Miles today: 11.2
Total miles: 1462.4

Our plan today was to hike to Daleville, resupply, then hike a few miles out of town and stealth camp somewhere. Then tomorrow we’d go by Mcafees Knob, the most photographed spot on the AT. Delta and I had talked about wanting to be at Mcafees knob for sunrise or sunset, but to do that we’d have to cut a day really short.

Anyway, the hike into Daleville was easy. Before we did any of our chores in town, we headed to get fast food for lunch… Obviously. As I was walking across the Bojangles parking lot I heard someone yell “are you a SOBO?” to me. I replied yes and discovered the girl and guy that had yelled to me were NOBOs that had finished their hike in September. The girl, Fun Size, asked “want some trail magic?” to which I obviously said yes. She said her and her boyfriend Bottlecap had gotten trail magic at this exact Bojangles on their hike. Bottlecap and Fun Size are from the area and were driving by and hoping to see Southbounders so they could pass the trail magic on. They bought Delta and me meals at bojangles and then sat chatting with us tellig us about all the cool stuff we have to look forward to on the trail. Meeting them was an unexpected great surprise.

After eating, I told Delta I’d thought about it and decided if he still wanted to stop early so we could get to Mcafees knob for sunset tomorrow I’d be fine with it. Originally I didn’t want to do another short day as I felt like we’ve been making slow progress lately. But I reminded myself that ill probably never get to see Mcafees knob again so i should see it at sunset if thats what id prefer. Plus doing a short day isn’t the end of the world. Delta was hapy to hear this and we decided to stay at a motel in town where we later found out 6 other SOBOs were staying! One of the six is a guy named hover job, who I haven’t seen since New Hampshire. He’s planning to throw a SOBO hobo bash AKA a Halloween party at a hostel coming up. I think there are so many sobos staying in town because they’re planning their hiking schedules around trying to get to the party on the right day. While the party sounds awesome, we’d have to basically take two days off hiking to make it so wed get to the hostel on the right day. I didn’t care enough about it to take that much time off and neither did delta, but it was nice to run into so many sobos because of the upcoming party. I met some new hikers I hadn’t seen yet–Slingshot and Sasquatch, two girls hiking together, and Fives, a guy from MN.

I kept pretty busy in town doing errands–walking to the post office, resupplying on food, and getting some warmer clothes at the outfitter. Another reason I was ok taking a short day today was that staying in town meant I’d get to watch the Red Sox! This would be game 2.5 I get to see (the half game beig when I just watched snippets with deltas family). I’d say that’s not bad for being in the woods managing to see that many games. Plus it was nice to just relax for an afternoon. Looking forward to Mcafees knob tomorrow.

Miles today: 17.0
Total miles: 1451.2

Deltas parents drove us back to the trail in the morning after we had breakfast and 8am milkshakes. His parents had brought all this extra food and supplies with them in hopes of providing trail magic but Delta and I are the only Southbounders around so they were disappointed they couldn’t give away more food. Nonetheless, they planned to hike a mile or two with us this morning and as the four of us headed to the trailhead we heard noise from the woods behind us. New Southbounders emerged! We met Smooth, a guy in his 20s from Georgia, and Ninja, a girl around 30 who I’d actually met before way back in Rutland VT. Deltas parents were elated to be able to give them trail magic and ninja and Smooth were equally excited to score tons of free food. It was also exciting for me and delta to run into new people as its been just the two of us heading south for a while now.
After providing trail magic, we then got on trail and after walking about a mile and a half uphill with us, deltas parents said goodbye to us. They were pretty winded from the hike and I think it made them appreciate even more what their son set out to do.
The rest of the day flew by and was relatively short milewise. I got to the shelter pretty early and Delta made a fire so that was nice. Ninja and Smooth stayed at the same shelter as us and it was so nice to have company for a change! I can’t remember the last time I stayed at a shelter with other Southbounders.

I have been slacking on updating my blog big time lately. I mean I have been busy walking twenty miles a day and all, but still. I feel guilty like a student that didn’t do their homework. Well not actually since we all know students don’t feel guilty for not doing homework. You get the point. I’m going to try to catch up on my blog today. In the meantime, watch this video Wolfbird made:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeYHsvClX1Q&sns=em

Miles today: 14
Total miles: 1434.2

It was so cold last night. Being in my tent definitely helped keep me a bit warmer but I was for sure pushing the limits of my 15 degree sleeping bag. I slept with my head completely under my sleeping bag and slept pretty well given the frigid temperatures. I did wake up at 430 am a bit cold and on the verge of being uncomfortable but was able to fall back asleep. I woke up at 730 delighted to find I’d survived the night. However, waking up meant I had to get out of my sleeping bag and I was not excited for that. I had an actual time limit too because we were meeting deltas parents at 2 pm so I had no time to be lazy. Delta kindly brought me my food bag so I was able to eat breakfast in my sleeping bag in my tent and put off getting up for as long as possible. Finally I put on every item of clothing I have and mustered up the motivation to get up.

Wow was it cold! I packed up as quick as possible and finally warmed up as I got walking. There was frost on the ground everywhere. Brrrr. The hiking was pretty easy and mostly downhill and we made decent time. We passed two guys out for the weekend and one of them told us his gun must’ve fallen out of his holster while he was hiking. He followed this up by saying if we came across the gun it was ours for the keeping! What. Welcome to the south I guess. I don’t think I’d ever seen a gun in person or known someone who owns a gun or even hunts before this trip.

Deltas parents had told him if they got to the road crossing before us they’d start hiking north to come meet us. We got to the road crossing around 230 and found their car empty. Delta called them and found out they had set out hiking… 40 minutes in the wrong direction! Oops.
When his parents returned from their hike, we set out to find a hotel and then go eat at the Home Place. We’ve been hearing about how we need to go to this place since Maine. It’s a family style place where they bring unlimited plates of food to the table and you eat family style until you can’t eat anymore. We got there at what we thought was an early dinner time, around 5 or 530, to find tons of people waiting inside and outside already! This place is popular and not just with hikers. In fact pretty much everyone there was a local. The restaurant was in a house set between mountains with beautiful sprawling fields surrounding it. You could wait inside or outside. We waite in the car for a bit and then came to wait inside because it was chilly to find some entertainment while we waited. In this side room there were all these chairs set up in rows and an older man and his grandson were playing guitar and singing. All their songs were religious and about Jesus and on some of the more well known ones the people watching in the chairs would all join in singing. Wow I am not in the north anymore. I had a good laugh imagining this scene in Boston and how people would react to it. I also saw some guy with a gun in its holster on his belt. Like what? You need to bring your gun out to eat? I don’t think that’s something I’ll ever get used to or be comfortable with.

After waiting an hour or so we got to eat and I was not disappointed. Delta and I are like the professionals we are. It reminded me of a big thanksgiving meal. We did have a funny moment where we’d cleared nearly all the plates except one little bowl. Deltas mom asked why we didn’t eat it and none of us could figure out what it was. We smelled it and it smelled like apples and we realized oh it Must be applesauce! Delta and I scooped some onto our plates and tried it only to scrunch up our noses. It was SO cinnamony. Like almost unbearably so. A few minutes after eating it I had an epiphany. OH MY GOD I said. It was apple BUTTER. We were supposed to put it on our biscuits but instead we just ate it by itself. I’m not cut out for southern living.

After dinner we went back to the hotel–delta and his family are so kind and are letting me stay with them. They enjoyed watching their Ohio state buckeyes on tv but conceded to switching to the World Series during commercials. Yes!

Miles today: 14.9
Total miles: 1420.2

While the distance we travelled today was pretty short and easy, it was almost entirely uphill. Virginia had these long, drawn out mountains so unlike in Maine or NH, where the trail goes straight up a mountain in a mile or two, in Virginia there are endless switchbacks and five to seven mile climbs up mountains. It’s not terrible, but it can get tedious especially when it’s a series of mountains like it was today.
It was chilly again today all day but at least it was sunny. While Delta and I were taking a break Delta heard a noise and we turned to see an adorable bear cub walk by probably 25 yards away. It didn’t even notice us so we got to see it just walking around downhill down the mountain. My first actual bear sighting! Finally.
I was pretty nervous because the forecast low overnight was 26 degrees. And that is in the valley, in town. The shelter we were staying at was at 4000 feet. I was slightly nervous I’d die of hypothermia. But it’s stuff like this that makes the trail exciting, right?!
We got to the shelter around 530 and it was so cold we could already see our breath even though the sun hadnt even gone down yet. It was kind of windy too. Delta and I then tried to construct a kind of fortress against the elements. All the shelters are three walled—they have an open face so the wind gets in easily. We used our tent rain flys and hung them to create a fourth wall. Ingenious plan. Until ten minutes later as we sat in our still cold fortress and then saw a mouse run by. Great, we’d created a sealed off barrier against the wind that at the same time locked us in with the mice

We ended up giving up tht plan and set up our tents instead. Supposedly tents are supposed to be ten degrees warmer than the outside air. We shall see how that works out. If I survive. Mwahaha.

Miles today: 20
Total miles: 1405.6
It’s been a long few 22 mile days in a row so I woke up tired and excited to get to town by the end of the day. Also it has been so cold all the time lately that I was excited to be able to just go inside a restaurant for warmth for a bit. Our plan was to hitch into Glasgow VA, a small town that has a free shelter and showers in their town park. The day was cold, very chilly with weather in the 40s. It even hailed on us on a mountain top! And snowflakes drifted around throughout the day. I did not expect the weather to be like this so far south and in October!

Delta and I got to the road around 430 and started hitching. Luckily we looked miserable and cold enough that we were Picked up pretty quickly. A woman in her 60s actually turned around to come pick us up. She was immediately hilarious, as she had to clean some stuff out from her backseat and there were a bunch of empty wine bottles and she declared in a thick southern accent “oh haha those are for crafts. IM NOT DRUNK!” Oh boy. We also learned within minutes of her picking us up that she’s had probably 30 something speeding tickets in her life and said she needs to be careful because she’s on some sort of driving probation. Her last ticket was for going 65 in a 35. Oh boy, comforting stuff to tell strangers you just picked up AND ARE CURRENTLY DRIVING. After a few minutes, Memmaw, as she came to be known, offered to let us stay at her home so we wouldn’t have to sleep outside in the predicted below freezing temperatures. We very quickly accepted her offer. And so began a very strange and very stereotypically southern/hick adventure.
Apologies in advance if I offend anyone by joking about and poking fun at my experiences at Memmaws. It was just so unlike any experience I’ve had and so stereotypically southern that I couldn’t help but laugh. In the end, I’m so grateful for the kindness Memmaw and LB showed us.
I don’t even know how to accurately describe my experience at LB and Memmaws. When we got there, Memmaw had to check with LB, her husband, that it was ok we stay. LB had an even thicker southern accent than Memmaw and had a way of saying things with absolutely no experession so I could never tell if he was serious or joking. Literally the first thing he said to us was “y’all have any guns with ya?” To which we replied no. After that it was confirmed we could stay. The room we stayed in was like a Disney version of Hoarders–everything imaginable was Mickey Mouse, from the blankets to mirrors to figurines on every shelf. LB is apparently a big fisherman and a big hunter. They had a nice big gun cabinet right in the living room. Memmaw said she doesn’t like to hunt all that much–her preferred type of hunting is “shooting gophers under the barn from the bathroom window”. She was dead serious. LB taught us the term “nary one” which means none. He gave the example of if someone asks how many fish you caught and you hadn’t had any luck, you reply “nary one”.
I was excited to get to watch a World Series game! I watched with Memmaw upstairs while delta and LB watched downstairs. Apparently Delta had some priceless moments with LB including details of how sometimes LB can’t keep his hands off Memmaw while they’re out in a boat fishing, comparing it to the song WagonWheel’s “rock me mama like a wagon wheel”. Apparently there were some confederate flags downstairs I didn’t have the pleasure of seeing.

Memmaw cooked us dinner and then breakfast in the morning and dropped us off at the trail. But not before initiating a prayer circle in the parking lot to send us off. I am so incredibly grateful for Memmaw and LBs kindness and the many new and mostly hilarious experiences I had with them. This was confirmation that I am in fact in the south.

Miles today: 22.4
Total miles: 1386.6

Not too much to report today except ohmygosh was it cold walking today. It was not only cold but it misted on us throughout the morning. We considered stopping at a shelter about six miles early but pushed on. I’m glad we did because the last six miles were nearly all downhill and as such, pretty easy. And the shelter we stayed at was at a much lower elevation so it was a bit warmer. We passed two groups of section hikers and each of them was kind enough to give us some food. So we enjoyed some fancy Mountain House meals for dinner.

Miles today: 22.3
Total miles: 1363.2

It was somewhat of an adjustment hiking today, getting used to “normal” trail after the comparatively easy trail in the Shenendoahs. All of a sudden, the weather has become quite a bit chillier during the day, only reaching the 50s rather than the 60s as it has been.
Today Delta and I met what may be the most badass and interesting guy I’ve met so far on the trail. His trail name was Free Bird and he’s thru hiked the AT three times. He’s also done the Pacific Crest Trail and Continental Divide Trail several times each. And also a super tough trail through New Zealand. Oh, and this is all after he retired/quit his career as a professional wind surfer in Hawaii. One might think someone who has spent so much time alone in the woods would be slightly (or maybe mostly) crazy, but he was pretty down to earth and was so humble about all of his accomplishments. He was a nice reminder that you really can make your life into what you want it to be.

Our long day ended with a fun (not) 3000 foot climb up The Priest Mountain. This was our biggest climb since probably Vermont. Luckily the climb wasn’t too steep as it was drawn out over five miles but whew, that last mile and a half was a killer. We got to the shelter at the top of the mountain as daylight was quickly fading. It was freezing so high in elevation–I was very excited to jump into my sleeping bag. Unfortunately I awoke the next morning to discover nice had gotten into my food bag. I’d hung my food bag separately from my pack and when I opened my pack in the morning a mouse friend was right there to greet me! So I had a nice hole in my food bag and had to get rid of a mouse in my pack (he’d brought peanuts into my pack–didn’t even eat them all, what a shame). Oh well, such is life. This was the first time a mouse had gotten into my food so I suppose I’m lucky. Oh! But I forgot to write that in the shenendoahs I accidentally left my phone and headphones out of my bag beside my head one night and a mouse chewed through my headphones! Ugh. I think I was more disturbed by the fact a mouse was so near my head than I was they ruined my headphones.

After our last day in the shenendoahs, delta and I headed into Waynesboro VA. Deltas great uncle Ron and his wife Celia live in Waynesboro and generously allowed us to stay with them. They picked us up at the trailhead and drove us back to their house. Ron used to fly planes a lot and as such they live in this awesome neighborhood with a runway in the middle and airplane hangars at each house. It was so cool—I had no idea neighborhoods like that even existed. Ron and Celia made us feel so at home and took such good care of us. We got to take nice hot showers and then we had a nice classy snack of cheese and crackers and grapes and beers. They were also so hilarious and made me laugh throughout my visit. After we got settled, the four of us drove to Ming’s Garden, a Chinese buffet we’d been hearing about from northbound hikers since day three on the trail. I’d been looking forward to this restaurant for over a thousand miles so I was excited but a bit nervous it wouldn’t live up to my high expectations. It turned out my fears were unfounded: the food was in fact amazingly delicious and I think Delta and I somewhat grossed out but also oddly impressed Ron and Celia with the amount we could eat. I slept so well with a full tummy and in a real bed. It was so tough to leave the next day, especially when Celia kept asking “what can we do to make you stay another day?” But we have many miles to Georgia and its not getting any warmer so off we went! After getting errands done in the morning, we hiked a pretty easy twelve miles up to the top of Humpback mountain. We got there as it was getting dark, but just in time to see an amazing sunset. We camped right by a cliff with a great view of it, me in my tent and delta cowboy camping under the stars. It was really windy and chilly overnight.

The rest of the Shenendoahs after leaving Thornys was really enjoyable. We had four great days in the park. The trails in the park are extremely well maintained and even on decent uphills it feels easier with the well made switchbacks. And the views and foliage were phenomenal. It feels good to be back in the mountains and the beautiful orange, red, and yellow leaves are just icing on the cake.
Now that the government decided to reopen the once empty, peaceful park is now chock full of tourists. The trail crosses skyline drive, the road all tourists drive, probably almost 50 times total, often at scenic overlooks with pullouts for people to pull over at. At one of these overlooks I took a 15 minute break and in that short amount of time I came up with an entertaining game: determining what category each car that pulls over will fall into. We have the Total Drive By: the car that pulls off skyline into the overlook area but drives ever so slowly by the overlook without ever stopping and then pulls back out onto skyline. Next we have the Hesitant Glancers: those that pull into the overlook area, stop for a second while still in their car but are apparently unimpressed and pull right back out. Following that is the Drive By Photographer: these more dedicated tourists take the time to not only pull off the road AND stop their cars but they also take out their phones/cameras and take a photo of the view from the comfort of their car!!! Wow. After them we have the even more enthused tourist: the Out the Window Photographer: these people are willing to take enough time out of their day to not just pull off the road, not just stop their car, and not just take a photo… They go the extra mile and ROLL DOWN THEIR WINDOW, extending their arms extending their camera outside of their car to get a photo. The final, and rare, type of tourist is the most adventurous: the Out of the Car Tourist. These daring types are willing to stop their cars and do more than just open their windows to get a photo: they will take the time to get out of their car to take a look and capture their photo. There are two subcategories: the car shutter offers and the car idlers which are pretty self explanatory. It is a fun game to try to guess what each car will be as they pull in. Obviously I’m being pretty judgmental but it made me a bit sad to see people so unwilling to even get out of their car and enjoy the beautiful surroundings. Oh well, to each his own.
I’ve been told by an embarrassing number of people that I write about food a lot in this blog. I was totally unaware I was doing this but I suppose it shows where my true allegiances lie. So, to avoid becoming an outright food blog, ill just quickly state that with the park now open I got to enjoy yummy snacks at the park waysides, including the Shenendoah special blackberry milkshake.
I saw a bunch of deer all throughout the park, nearly all of which were totally unafraid of humans. I turned the corner once and nearly ran straight into a deer. I think it scared me more than I scared it! It didn’t move even when I got within feet of it and only did when I started loudly talking to it. It allowed me to get a nice close up photo at least!
Ill miss the shenendoahs for their beautiful views but I’m glad to be getting into less touristy areas once we leave.