When we woke up in the morning, we had calmed down quite a bit. The night had cooled off and we had gotten some much needed rest. Bunny might say I was still grumpy, but Doc had set me down that path a few days ago. We still had no cell signal, so we had to continue on the trail. We managed to talk in a more civilized manner with each other and realized we didn’t need to go home to check on things—we could just call and talk to people. One of my big fears when Bunny went home last week was that she wouldn’t want to return to the trail. When people get off, it’s extremely difficult to get back on and Bunny is no exception. Add in the fact that she misses her kids and they had spent some quality time together when she was back home…
It was only a mile to Pickle Branch Shelter and we were back to normal by the time we arrived. We wanted to have a picnic table to sit at so we could have a relatively relaxed breakfast. There were only two problems with the shelter: 1) it was a half mile off the trail, and 2) the water was 100 yards past the shelter,
Decide to stay on trail (and that 100 yards was straight downhill which is why everyone else had chosen to stay at the road last night).
The log book at the shelter had a few entries that stated a momma and baby bear had been sighted in the area. We kept an eye out for them as we headed out. Murphy (named for the law where anything that can go wrong will go wrong) dropped in for some water as we were packing up. He had already put in 9 miles this morning to our 1. We passed another couple of guys sitting under a tree (Miagi and Wood Chuck) waiting for him to return. They were all headed to Four Pines Hostel where we had just decided to spend the night. When we ran into these guys at the hostel, they said they saw the bears just after we left. I am getting sick and tired of baiting our tent for bears with zero results while guys lounging around get free sightings—I’m crossing bears off my must see list.
It was supposed to be an easy 8 mile walk today with just four miles of incline to gain the 1600’ we needed to get to the ridge. That’s not really a bad incline at all, 400’/mile but we were dying. The sun was beating down hard. it was well over 80 at 9:30 when we had gotten to the shelter and there was no way I was going to look again. We each had a liter and a half of water to get us there. I was still upset about our short spring (it only lasted a day) before we turned to summer. We had white stains on our shirts, packs, and walking pole straps from salt which we were losing with our sweat. I had to keep Bunny from licking my shirt all the time for the salt.
I couldn’t stand having the sun beating on me, but I had to keep it off of me. I was sweating bad. To sop up the sweat, I was wearing my buff under my hat. The “Einstein light” went off about half way up. Alice had sent us ultra-light umbrellas which we were both carrying. I had figured out how to rig it up “hands free” for the rain and was planning on doing the same when we were ridge walking in PA. Why the light hadn’t gone off yesterday (unless my mind was to occupied with fighting rather than avoiding heat) I don’t know. It worked like a charm. I immediately cooled off 10 degrees down to just being unbearable heat instead of hellish.
Bunny copied me, as she always does (that’s why I order first in restaurants so it doesn’t look like I’m copying her). The last two miles up, even though hotter, were more pleasant walking. I knew we were getting close to the 700 mile mark and kept having Bunny check the GPS app (Guthook) for when we were there. I didn’t want to miss the milestone. My eyes were sweeping both sides of the trail looking for signs.
At Dragons Tooth, we ran into students out day hiking. We thought this was finals week at Virginia Tech and were surprised that there were so many out. We talked with several different groups only to find out that some had already had finals and were out celebrating while others just chose to relax in the outside. This was a big regret of mine that I lost touch with nature when I was in college—these kids really are smarter than me.
It was only 2.4 miles down to the road. I tried to call the hostel to arrange a shuttle but only got a message saying the owner was out hunting. I gave a time well past what it should take us to go downhill. It was a good thing I over estimated the time because this was an incredibly difficult section of trail. I would truly be afraid to go down this trail in the rain. It was a section worthy of the Whites in New Hampshire.
As we got to the road, I saw a car parked waiting. I thought for sure we had a ride to the hostel, but it must have belonged to some day hikers. There was a sign indicating that the hostel was only 0.3 miles down the road. I got my umbrella back out and off we went. As soon as we turned in the drive, we saw a bunch of hikers we knew including Patches and Gnome who we have been trying to catch up with since we left Angels Rest. Dirty R and Grape Stomper were also here—we haven’t seen them since Damascus.
We wanted to shower before dinner but the shuttle to the Home Place was getting ready to leave. Midnight assured us that they were used to smelly hikers so not to worry. We all piled into the suburban and off we went. It’s a good thing we hadn’t showered because it would have been cancelled with the 15 hikers in vehicle for 7. Hikers share a lot of similarities with clowns—-both need to shower more, both scare little kids, and they both pack way more into cars than people think are possible.
I’m not normally a big fried chicken person, but I scarfed it down. In fact, we all scarfed everything down. We tried to keep talking each other into a slower eating pace so we could keep eating. After my third plate, I started bouncing up and down in my chair just like I bounce my bear bag to get it to hold more food. The next two plates I ate seem to indicate this could actually be effective. After we cleaned up everything brought to us: fried chicken, roast beef, Virginia ham. Pinto beans, green beans, cole slaw, mashed potatoes, biscuits, macaroni and cheese, and apple butter along with all the tea, soft drinks, and lemonade we could drink, we called it quits before someone actually burst.
We pulled the clown car into the diner/gas station/grocery store to resupply. The two cashiers stood with jaws open as we continued to climb out of the car. Bunny and I picked up a few items we needed to get to Daleville. I talked it over with a few people about getting a pizza for later, but Bunny heard me and killed the idea. A couple hours later, I was really upset that I hadn’t been more forceful. I cried myself to sleep to keep my mind off of my hunger.
EFG