Trail Journal for April 7, 2008 … joe’s birthday, a view of the southern part of the smokie mts,, fontana lake, clingman’s dome, and some buzzing black bugs

Episode 16 on YouTube

Crazy and somewhat random day today. We were expecting thunderstorms when we woke up at the shelter, but aside from a few clouds, the weather was great for a hike! We had 5ish easy miles that were mostly downhill to I-81. We headed out from the shelter @ 8:30 and did the first 2 or so miles before we started to hear some sort of an eerie sounding hum coming from off in the distance. At first we thought it was a huge waterfall, and then maybe a lawnmower down in the valley or something. However, it turned out to be a flippin’ huge set of powerlines that apparently get louder and seemingly more ominous in really humid weather. There was a big sign on the side that said “Danger! High Voltage! Stay back!” or something to that order. And wouldn’t you know it, the trail went not near, but completely in between the legs of the powerlines! We may have some green skin and an extra appendage or two now but other than that there seems to be no lingering affects! Once we passed the powerlines, we came to an old farm that has been turned in to a museum that people can pay to tour. It is apparently free for thruhikers, but we were anxious for a big country breakfast at a place next to the interstate called The Barn, so we pushed on. The only other highlights of the hike down were lots of honeysuckle and a meadow where we saw a good sized doe with her still speckled fawn chasing close behind. They were too quick to get a picture but it was a pretty cool scene. Once we got close to Atkins, it was like we took a step back in time to the 1950’s. The only real thing around here is a brick factory, a restaurant that used to be a barn, a truck stop, and a dumpy motel with mold growing in the showers! The reason we know about the mold is that after a great breakfast of eggs, bacon, sausage, hashbrowns, pancakes, and biscuits and gravy at The Barn, we decided to stay at the aforementioned motel, known as the Relax Inn, because of the promise of nasty weather coming in this evening (wow, really long sentence). After some time had passed, we realized the wisdom in our decision. Around 7 this evening the skies opened up and it has been raining steadily ever since. We had planned to resupply in town anyway, so we payed the hotel owners a little cash to take us into Marion to the Ingles Supermarket. Briar and Forecast went with us and after resupplying we came back to the motel and have been eating and watching TV since around 6! The weather is supposed to pass overnight but there is a pretty good chance of showers for each of the next 5 days. We are presently about 100 miles south of Pearisburg, VA and hope to be there sometime on our 6th day out from here.

I guess now would be a good time to let you know about the not so good news for the day. Please don’t let what I’m about to say worry you. As we were arriving at the motel, we ran into Jackaroo who gave us some rather sobering news that has been in all the papers down here. It seems that at one of the shelters between here and Pearisburg some guy in the early 80’s went a little crazy and killed 2 hikers. It is still the single worst crime in the history of the AT, and the incident has even been made into a book. At any rate, he served around 15 years, was paroled in ‘96, and was completely free and clear in ‘06. He disappeared last Saturday and, according to the papers, reappeared yesterday, shot 2 fishermen along the trail (both of whom survived thankfully) and stole one of their trucks. The injured men took the other truck to a nearby house, called police, and the man was quickly apprehended. He is in custody now and last we heard they were still trying to get everything worked out before charging him with as much as they could get him on. Everyone in the hiker community was a little shook up and the Forest Service actually shut down a section of the Trail just north of here to make sure there were no other injuries. The article we read had some pictures of hikers on the front page who were in the area at the time, and it was really weird seeing people that we actually recognized. I sat next to one of the guys that was interviewed on a shuttle ride in Erwin. It was a strange day indeed.

Please know that Mel and I hesitated to even make mention of this situation, since there are sadly murders and other crimes that take place in our towns every day of every week. The last thing we wanted was to start a panic but we also wanted to put it out there to make everyone aware of it and to let you know that we are fine and have never in any way feared for our safety out here. Statistically there is about 1 violent crime on the AT for every 5-6 million people who visit. That is roughly 1 violent crime for the entire population of the great state of Indiana. Those odds are better even than sleeping in your bed at home. Please do keep us in your prayers, but not with any more concern than you already had. And not to over spiritualize, but please pray that we can be a light in this situation in some way as well. We continue to have great conversations with friends we hike with and still pray that God will use us in powerful ways!

Take care and we’ll keep posting as often as we have service. God Bless.

Apparently the argument video has hit the airwaves! Hope you all enjoyed it. Today was another great day of hiking and spending time with our friends. We are amazed at the number of friends we have made and the frequency at which the laughter comes. We left our campsite this morning, after another night of hearing a bear lurking around outside the tents, at around 8:30 with 10.6 miles before Partnership Shelter and the promise of pizza and a shower. The first 3 miles were an easy downhill and we got to go through another lovely cow pasture, fresh with the scent of green grass and many piles of the remains of green grass! It was like a poo minefield. We both made it through unscathed and were quickly at our first stop next to a beautiful stream with a cool foot bridge about 100 feet across. We sat down next to the water and washed off a bit, since we smell vaguely like a cross between Fritos and wild pony feet (that adjective combination came compliments of Briar and Aggie, both of whom are in the shelter with us tonight)! After 30 minutes or so we headed back uphill and regained all of the elevation we had lost, and then some. The day was bright and sunny and, aside from the constant barrage of rocks, we enjoyed our hiking and had a lovely morning. Shortly after we summited our 2nd mountain of the morning, we were caught by our new friends Forecast and Aggie. Forecast was in the zone and hiked on ahead, but we got the priviledge of walking the final 3 or 4 miles with Aggie. She is 26 and works with people recovering from head injuries back home in New Hampshire. We had a splendid talk with her and are happy to call them both our friends. We arrived at Partnership Shelter at around 1:30 and were bummed to find the Pizza Hut didn’t deliver until after 4 so we walked to the Mt. Rogers NRA visitors’s center for a pop and a flush toilet, although not at the same time! While there, we discovered a menu for the Tuscan Italian Restaurant and decided to order our pizza from them. We ordered a large (16 inch) Veggie Deluxe, a large Cheese with ground beef, a large order of cheese bread, and two pieces of French Silk Pie! We knew we wouldn’t finish it but figured we’d carry some for dinner. We walked back to the shelter and decided to take a shower, which the shelter actually has attached to it. It is the only one of its kind on the whole AT. It was a nice shower but the hot water was off so it was actually just as cold as the creek water. Not much fun, but at least it washed some of the dirt off. After the shower, we walked back to the visitor’s center and waited the final few minutes for our food. It finally arrived and we feasted! We had almost an entire pizza left so we brought it with us and I had some more for dinner, as well as giving a couple pieces away.

We left the shelter at around 4 with 7.2 miles left to go for the day. Those miles, on a stomach full of low end pizza, were a little harder than most. Today was also one of the more pointless days as it related to ups and downs. There were several places that the trail could easily have skirted around a mountain but instead went straight up and straight back down! Oh well, we expected to climb mountains out here so we can’t complain. We got to the shelter where we are staying, Chatwick Shelter, at around 7:45 and were greeted by Briar and Jackaroo. Aggie and Forecast were right behind us. The weather is supposed to turn ugly tonight so we are staying in a shelter yet again, and hoping the mice will leave us alone! Tomorrow we are doing the 5 or so miles down to I-81 and resupplying in Atkins, VA. If the weather is nasty we may stay in town but otherwise we’ll head out. We feel good about our progress the last few days because if you count our 17.8 today, we’ve hiked over 70 miles in the last 4 days! We are hoping to be into Pearisburg, which is around 100 miles from here, in the next 6 or 7 days. We’re not sure though, as our friends Aaron and Neta are behind us and we’d kinda like to wait for them. We’ll just see how we feel. Our bodies and legs continue to do well and our feet are only moderately sore. Please pray that our good health continues on up the trail.

We hope you’re still enjoying reading our posts, and if you are, tell all your friends! The more people who hear about this trip, and then the reason behind it, the better. For more info on that, check out the Help Out section on the side of the page.

20.0 big miles today! This morning we awoke to chilly temps and a cloudless sky. We packed up and headed out from the shelter at around 8:30. We were out of the state park but still very much in the Virginia highlands area. Our first couple miles were more of the same as it related to rocks and terrain. After that we summited Stone Mt. and entered in to a field that Melissa commented looked very much like the African wilderness. We had wide open views of what we had walked yesterday and, aside from a few scraggly trees, there wasn’t any vegetation to speak of. It was very pretty, in a rugged and hands off kind of way. We crossed the field and ran into Bananas at a place called The Scales. It is a flat meadow that is aptly named, as it was used as a place for farmers to weigh their cattle that they used to graze all summer on top of the highlands. Aside from a park sign giving history about the place, there wasn’t much to see so we moved on and next summited Pine Mt. It is the last mountain above 5000 ft. for the next several hundred miles I believe. A quick 2 miles down the backside of Pine brought us to our first shelter, Old Orchard Shelter, and first break of the day. It was here we saw Forecast and Aggie and found out that several of our hiking friends were within a couple miles of us. We also bumped into Briar again and he reminded us that reaching Old Orchard Shelter meant that we were officially over 500 miles! We celebrated with some Banana Nut muffins and some time in the sun. After 30 minutes we put our boots back on and continued north. The next section was 3 miles of downhill to a highway and then another 2.5 back up the next mountain. We made good time and stopped for lunch at Hurricane Ridge Shelter at around 2. Here we met Stump Knocker and got a little of his story. This is his 6th thruhike of the AT (how about picking a different place huh?) and his first one wasn’t until 2002! That means with the exception of last year he has hiked the Trail every year since 2002. He was very nice to chat with but I doubt we’ll ever see him again. When we stopped at the place we are camping at around 8, he was just heading out for some more miles. After lunch we ran into Kyanite, Sunkist, Aggie, Forecast, Jackaroo, and Bus Driver, whose journal entries we’ve loved reading and were really looking forward to meeting. We hiked the final 9 miles somewhat with them, and are camped near a shelter with all of the above names, plus Briar, Sunbeam (who we also met earlier today), and some guy heading south. The shelter is nice, but the tent sites are even better. Sunkist and Kyanite also found some mushrooms and cooked them up to share with everyone. Bus Driver is a nice guy from GA who happens to love old school country music, so we’ve hit it off fairly well. 

All in all, today was better than most. We did a lot of miles, the weather was great, and we are camping with friends. The only drawback was a continuation from yesterday. Our feet are bruised on the bottoms from all of the rocks along the trail. Mel commented that is was like having millions of little trolls hiding along the side of the trail and jumping out every step to hit us in the feet and ankles with baseball bats! It think that was a fair description. If the rocks continue like this, I may have to write some more poetry about this lovely state! Aside from sore feet though, most of our other issues are just par for the course out here. Mel’s calves are really sore and I’ve really been hurting in my left hip flexor. It feels like all the muscles around my hip have been tied together and are being used by those guys on World’s Strongest Man to pull the jumbo jet down the street! Every step I take feels like them pulling against my hip with all their might. Honest, it feels just like that, or at least how I think that would feel! Oh well, it’ll get better with time.

Tomorrow we are heading 10 miles to Partnership Shelter and having lunch there. It is close enough to town that Pizza Hut will deliver and we’re totally gonna get some pizza and breadsticks! Everyone else here is stopping with us and we’re all so excited that we’ve actually been discussing what kind we’re all gonna order. I’ll save that decision for our post tomorrow night. Have a great day and we’ll hopefully talk to you soon.

Well, having now made it through the Grayson Highlands, we are free to form our own opinion. As far as views are concerned, this area is incredible. For wildlife, it’s tough to beat, as the wild ponies are amazing! However, they aren’t that wild at all. I was expecting tattoos and a lot of body piercings, or at least tails and manes died different colors. But alas, they were just your average wild ponies! Mel actually got to pet one though, which was pretty cool. The only real downside we have is that the 15 miles we did today up and over Mt. Rogers and through the highlands were without a doubt the rockiest section of trail in almost 500 miles. It was like the rocks had been outlawed in the ’20’s during Prohibition and someone had moved them all here to stockpile them for later use! There were literally sections of over a mile where we scarcely could find the trail because all there was to walk on were more rocks. Fortunately the bloody nubs of hikers who had gone before had stained the trail a lovely shade of red!

We headed out from our campsite around 9:30, which is a little late but we figured we’d be alright. Last night I found about a 6 inch mushroom (a morel for those of you technical folk) but didn’t have any oil or flour so I gave it to some dude driving a van who happened to pass by. After that we did our biggest climb of the entire state of Virginia. We went up over 2000 ft. in a little over 2.5 miles. We were excited though because we managed it in 1 hour and 1 minute, and passed 7 other hikers on the way up! The view from the top, a place called Buzzard Rock, was amazing, and we spent a few minutes with the 8 or 10 others who climbed up after us. Th Trail seems really crowded this year but someone told us yesterday there have only been about 6-700 people attempt a thruhike this year, which is less than any of the previous 8 years I believe. At any rate, we certainly had our fair share of company. We hiked another 4 miles and stopped for lunch in the shadow of Mt. Rogers. We were already fairly high in elevation so we only had about 1000 ft. to get to the top. That came about 2.5 miles later and once there, we saw our first herd of wild ponies. Apparently there are around 100 ponies in and around The Grayson Highlands and they are managed by the Park Service. We stopped at a shelter on top of Rogers, rested our feet, pumped some water, and headed on. The next 5 miles were the hardest and rockiest of the day, but we did get to go through Fatman Squeeze, which is a natural rock tunnel along the trail. It was cool but not wet your pants cool! When we finally dropped out of the highlands we walked a couple more miles to the shelter where we are staying. We are the only ones here and it looks like we may have the shelter to ourselves for the first time. The water source is kind of sketchy, so we walked a few hundred yards to a beautiful stream to pump our drinking water. While pumping, the handle broke on our 2nd filter of the trip and now I have to hold jagged plastic to make the thing work. As you can expect, I was deliriously giddy about that. Oh well, we have iodine tablets if we have to use them. That’s all for tonight. It’s getting late and actually pretty cold so we’re gonna get in our sleeping bags and dream of rock free hiking trails! Have a great night.

Trail Journal for April 6, 2008 … one of the first decent views in a while

Episode 15 on YouTube

New footage just obtained that will hopefully set the record straight as to whether or not Joe and Melissa constantly fight on the trail. Watch and see for yourself!

Special Episode 1 on YouTube

And now for a little verse:

Virginia, oh Virginia. How do we love thee! Let us count the ways:

1. As far as states go, you’re alright with me. Perhaps your best asset is that you’re NOT TENNESSEE!
2. Your mountains are big and your mountains are high, but the miles on your trail seem to fly by. When a hill comes along, its not staight up, then down. Your trail has switchbacks to take us happily around.
3. Your shelters are neat, tidy and new. The same for your privies so we can take a happy poo!
4. Instead of just hinting, it seems spring has sprung. Now all the landscape is green, and not colored like dung!
5. Hitch hiking is legal and the locals seem nice. So now we’re not bothered by imitation Miami Vice.

We could go on and on, but suffice it to say that we’re very happy to be in Virginia! Here’s how the day went down:

We got up around 7:30 at the hotel, packed all our gear, showered again, and headed back to Damascus a little after 8. Bruce and Pamie treated us to breakfast at the same place we had gone on Friday morning and then we hugged and said our goodbyes in the parking lot of the outfitter. We left Damascus at around 10:15 and our first .5 miles were along the Creeper Trail and then we took a sharp left turn, crossed highway 58, and started our first climb. It took a few miles to get our hiking legs back under us but by our first break, around 5 miles in, we were feeling great. We stopped for a bit next to a lovely creek and enjoyed some of our cookies that we got from Bev Cameron (thank you so much Bev!), or at least some chunks of cookie, as they were pretty smashed in my bag! After about 20 minutes we headed out and made quick work of our next 4.5 miles before lunch. Lunch was against a log in a beautiful sunny spot on top of a small mountain. We loved the spot but so did the ants, who seemed to have a special interest in my leg hair! While there we saw Recurve, and some other people we hadn’t met before. Two of them turned out to be section hikers from Fla named Round To It and Fly Fish. Both are nice guys and we flip flopped with them on the trail for the rest of the day. After lunch we headed down the mountain and pumped some water next to a pond that looked like it could have had some strange creature lurking beneath it’s surface! We opted out of a swim and hiked the next 5 miles, with 1 break along the way, to our 2nd crossing of The Creeper Trail. This time we got to follow it for about a half mile and crossed a 500 ft. railroad trestle where we got some pics, rested our feet, and got to watch a bike rider who started to say hi have a huge bug fly in his gaping open mouth! A good time was had by all! We wanted to stay longer but it was getting late and we needed to get some more miles done. So, we headed back uphill and came to our 2nd shelter for the day. It was really nice and we were tempted to stay. However, we had enough light left for a couple more miles and decided to move on. The last 2 miles were nice and easy and we actually came through a nice pasture with a herd of Herford and Black Angus cattle. It almost felt like home. Just past there we ran into Briar and Bad Idea who had set up camp for the night and we opted to stay with them. They’re great guys and we always laugh a lot with them around! All told, we did 18.1 miles today and we have completed a total of 479.2. We cooked dinner and have been sitting around a great fire for the last hour or so. The sunset was great, the stars are beautiful, and the forecast is for more of the same tomorrow. We will be hiking in the Grayson Highlands the next 2 days and many people say it is the prettiest section of the whole trail. We’re looking forward to forming our own opinions. That’s about all for now. Thanks again to the Camerons for putting us up for the weekend. It was a huge blessing to us and we loved seeing you guys. Have a lovely evening and a pleasant tomorrow.

And don’t be copying and pasting my lovely poetry and claiming it for your own! I’m sure it was so wonderful and eloquent that many of you were moved to tears! Ha!