Since we paid for a hotel, we decided to make the most of it. Check out time was 11 and we got out a comfortable 15 minutes early. I wanted to stop for one last town pizza on the way to the trail, but Gnome and Bunny vetoed that idea. Their reasoning was that we had two more road crossings in the first three miles so, surely, there will be a restaurant at one of them.
Nothing at the first crossing, so our hopes were pinned on the road to Troutville. With a name like Troutville, you’d expect it to be really good to entice people to face the risk of a fishy smelling town, or, as in this case, to have nothing. I had to adjust my stomach to the fact that we were not getting another town meal and get it to settle for tuna on a wrap. All I got, other than a disappointed stomach was the knowledge that we crossed the 1/3 mark for the entire trail—yes, 730 miles down, 1460 miles to go. Or, in the vernacular of Mizman, take all the effort we have spent from February 12 to now and do it just twice more and we’ll be done.
We met a nice sobo day hiker by the name of Big D (Dallas). He was a 73 year old who made it a point to hike 10 miles or more at least 3 times a week. He was in remarkable shape. We stopped and talked with him for almost 20 minutes about the trail ahead, politics, cars, the good ole days, almost anything to avoid the climb ahead. Eventually, we had to move on.
Even though we had only been off for one day, there was a noticeable difference in the trail environment. Leaves were starting to appear in the trees, grass was framing the trail, rhododendrons were budding, and there were several small flowers opening up on the forest floor.
We stopped at Fullhardt Knob Shelter for a quick lunch break. There were already a half dozen other hikers there when we arrived with the only one we knew being New York. Little Foot was a 20year old VMI (Virginia Military Institute) student who was taking a year off to hike the trail. Since he was the same age as Bunny’s son, we had a discussion with him about the merits of the military and what he hoped to do as a VMI graduate.
Bunny’s son has not made a final decision on joining the military. We found out from talking with everyone that they weren’t entirely against his joining, but they wanted him to slow down and think it out thoroughly. He had been swayed by the recruiter to join as a paratrooper since he wouldn’t get the signing bonus for special forces until he successfully completed the training (which has a 7% success rate). We had tried to encourage him to take a position which would get him a marketable skill outside of the military, like a drone pilot (since Amazon will be testing same day drone delivery very soon, this will be one of the fastest growing fields in the future). Sam was persuaded by the instant $20K signing bonus of the paratrooper. None of us want him in a grunt combat position so we are glad the family stopped him. Now he has found out his medical and test results are good for two years, and Sam has never been one to squander a long grace period by making a quick decision; we expect it will be some time before he decides what to do.
The afternoon gave us our first opportunity to rain test our new umbrellas. We are now believers. These will always be a part of our basic equipment from here on. We were able to keep completely dry yet not die from heat. Usually, if we don rain gear, we end up sweating just as much as if we had just walked in the rain. We stayed cool, comfortable, and dry. Most importantly, for me, I kept the rain off of my glasses. The warm rain brought out lots of salamanders and frogs to the trail.
Wilson Creek Shelter saw the end of the rain for us. When we arrived, there were already 7 other hikers there, but no Lady Bug or Stickers. We weren’t really expecting Patches to show up because we expected her to fall prey to the allure of Three Pigs Barbecue. She had left us at the trail head to resupply and food proves to be a weak point for her.
Little Foot told us he was getting up early because he had to meet his parents on Friday at the James River crossing. To save time, he decided to cook in the shelter and not hang a bear bag. We decided that we didn’t have to be real careful with our bag since the bears would go for the easiest source first. We did sleep at the other end of the shelter to be safe.
We have heard of people seeing bears just after we leave. We are getting sick and tired of our terrible bear luck. We have even heard of a hiker sleeping alone in a shelter to awake with a bear asleep at the other end. He did manage to pack up quickly and quietly to get away. We’ve also heard of rattlesnake, cottonmouth, and copperhead snake sightings and we’ve got nothing. I don’t know why we can’t catch a break.
EFG