All good things must end—especially zeros which cost and we are over budget. The sun was shining so I was not thrilled about hiking today. Chad the Dad left well over an hour ahead of us, so we have now demoted him to “red shirted crew member” meaning we’ll never see him again.
The trail for the rest of Virginia is supposed to be flat and easy. Let me share a fun fact. The next 50 miles of trail into Harpers Ferry include a section called “the roller coaster.” Flat and easy and the roller coaster—too many people smoke weed before describing the trail. Unfortunately, I’m not one of them or it might seem level. I’ll give the next 50 miles this much; there are only a couple of climbs over 1000’ so it’s comparatively flat (but in no way flat).
The trail can best be described with 3 words: muddy, muddy, and muggy. With all the days of rain we’ve had lately, the trail is one giant mud puddle. I will say this for VA, the soil is black and rich. ATweather has predicted dry weather for the next few days which translates as unending storms on the trail. We couldn’t get confirmation on the trail closure after Harpers Ferry, but I suspect it’s true.
We encountered surprisingly few people on the trail today. We stopped at the Jim & Molly Denton Shelter for a snack and I really had a hard time convincing myself to leave. VA is really rolling out the red carpet as we get ready to leave the state. This shelter has a shower, a clean privy with toilet paper, a separate eating shelter, and even a horseshoe pit for entertainment. Patches should be back on the trail by now. If she continues nobo, she’ll be by this shelter in a few weeks. We could easily hold out here until she catches up again.
Reluctantly, I move on under duress. Bunny threatened me once again. She found her spork so she should now be considered armed and dangerous. For all those who think she is such a sweet, unassuming princess, you have no idea. She’s a demanding tyrant that won’t let me sleep until she is snoring. Only then am I allowed to crawl onto my Tyvek sheet under the shelter to try to sleep, but, god help me, if I’m not ready with hot coffee when she awakes. True dat.
We saw a Train Wreck by the interstate. Forget the “a” in the last sentence. We hadn’t seen him since we left him in Stanimals. I thought he’d be way ahead by now. He was actually calling an Uber to do a little yellow blazing backwards. He had hitched into town and back but got dropped at the wrong road crossing so now he’s trying to get five miles back and spend the night at the Denton Shelter tonight. He’s a trail purist and reluctant to backtrack on foot to catch all sections of the trail.
We detoured to Manassas Gap Shelter around 4. Bunny had been complaining about her hips hurting and I thought she might want to stop a few miles early today. Twinkie was there packing up to move on to the next shelter. This was a 100% certified mouse free shelter so I was surprised that Bunny was so insistent upon pushing on another 5 miles. She has really taken the “we need more miles” talk to heart. I’m sure the two rat snakes in the rafters had no impact on her decision to keep going.
The only sobo hiker we saw told us there were “Beautiful flowers” just off trail ahead and well worth the side trip. “Goats Beard” she said. I’m really thinking this woman might need to get out more. We saw some fuzzy looking flowers but they were kind of dull and full of ticks. I managed to find some not covered in bugs so I took a picture since we had made the effort to come down. New guideline; we will now ask for a list of medications from anyone recommending side trails and enquirer as to the last time they left the house before today.
The trail down to Dicks Dome was windy and not well marked. When we got there, we found Twinkie all by himself. Yellow jackets were swarming everywhere and the shelter was in the middle of a stream from all the rain. The privy was above the shelter and it had water running around it on the way down to us. It was really a pretty crappy shelter (yes, that was intentional).
There was also a note scrawled on the wall that I didn’t let Bunny see. It said there were 3 copperheads within 10’ of the shelter. I knew this wouldn’t impact her, but I get up in the night to go pee. Guthook indicated that a new shelter is adjacent to this one. We told Twinkie we were going to keep looking for the new shelter.
Whiskey Hollow Shelter was everything we had hoped for and more. It was a double level shelter with stairs. It could easily sleep 2 dozen hikers. There was a covered porch with cooking platforms all around a picnic table in the middle. The floor and walls had even been sealed to prevent bugs from burrowing in and to keep animals from chewing on it. There were windows above to allow light in. They had even collected old railroad spikes and put them in every few feet to hang packs off of. I felt sorry for Twinkie staying down in the dome all by himself so I went down and helped him carry all his crap up.
Ultimately, 11 people stayed in the shelter. Baba Ganoush and Concrete Cowboy had taken a zero here today. There were just two minor things that had no impact on us. The first, a bird had a nest in the rafters right above Cowboy’s head and it kept flying in and out during the day. It still hadn’t crapped on him, so it was all good.
Everyone decided to sleep with their heads in tonight. As soon as we got in bed, a mouse jumped down on to Annie’s head. She barely screamed. She did, however, pop a couple of Benadryl to keep her from screaming the next time it happened. The mouse was pretty bold. He just sat there calmly watching while she was brushing her hair out. I think he was just screwing with her a bit since there wasn’t any food in the shelter.
EFG