May 6th. Today we hiked 18.4 miles to Cornelius Creek Shelter. This was a great day. We ended up scoring a four leaf clover in one day. A four leaf clover is a term we developed to describe getting trail magic four times. It started out when we crossed the Blue Ridge Parkway. There an elderly man was waiting outside of his VW bus and giving out coffee and breakfast biscuits. Next we came across a cooler near another road crossing with sodas and various other snacks. Later that evening at the shelter, the aunt and uncle of our friend "The Colonel" showed up with two buckets of KfC looking for him. The Colonel had left about an hour before that so the two of us and our two other friends, "Enzed" and "Mammoth" shared the two full buckets which ended up being half a chicken each. We were just thinking how nice a soda would go with this meal when, Larry, a nice man who was camping at the shelter, brought us each a Dr. Pepper and a Yuengling lager. It was the perfect end to our wonderful day. A day that probably won't be topped, at least in terms of trail magic.
Nothing major happened on the 7th of May as we hiked the 19.8 miles into Glasgow VA. The only thing worth mentioning is that Redwood (Dave) and Enzed got confused and ended up hiking past the road that leads to Glasgow. However, they ended up asking a couple who were day hiking how to get to town and the couple ended up driving them in even though it was out of there way.
Leaving Glasgow seemed to be harder then we thought. The trail was only 5.9 miles out of town but it was Sunday and Mothers Day. After standing in the middle of this two street town for about an hour a pickup truck took five of us back to the trail head. It was 10:30am by the time we started hiking. We ended up doing 20.1 miles to Brown Mountain Creek Shelter. A late start and big miles only means one thing, a late finish. The last hour seemed to take forever because it was starting to get really dark. By 7:30pm we finally made it. The only interesting thing that happened was that a day hiker gave us a container of BBQ chicken, bread, and sodas about 1 mile from the shelter. We are really loving these random acts of kindness, and having two dinners.
On the 9th, we planned a shorter day of 15.8 to Seeley-Woodworth Shelter because of the unequal spacing of the shelters. The only challenging part of the day was the 2,885 foot climb out of the shelter. About 45 minutes in to the climb I (LEGO) realized that I dropped my snack bag. Not wanting to loose all of my snacks for that day or the handy bag that I found in a hiker box, I went back. Without a pack on you can move much faster. By the time I found the bag I was most of the way back to the shelter. I turned around and raced back to my pack that I had left on the side of the trail. This 4 mile detour would normally not be a problem but I still had to climb 2,000 feet less the 2 miles. What was supposed to be a short day ended up being quite long for me.
Later that night we came to the realization that it made more sense to hike 20.7 instead of the 14.5 that was planned. It was not the extra horizontal miles that scared us but the vertical feet. After 7.5 miles the following morning we were standing on the top The Priest Moutain and looked acrossed a vally towards Three Ridge Mountain. The only thing between them was a 3103 foot descent and a 3,016 foot climb. We were fairly surprised when we made it to to Maupin Field Shelter that this day did not take that much longer then any other 20 mile day we had previously done.
Wednesday makes it seven full days without a shower. In the hot and humid temperatures we have recently experienced you cam imagine the grime that has built up. After we made it to Paul C. Wolfe Shelter (15.8 miles), a shelter with a large creek as the water source, you can probably guess what happened next. Yep, we got wet. The water was ice cold and numbing but felt really nice afterwards.
We planned the next couple of days based around a visit from LEGO's uncle, aunt & cousin and then sister & Brother-in-Law. Because of this we decided to push on past Waynesboro, VA causing us to leave our group that we have been hiking with for over 500 miles. After 5 miles into the day we entered the Shenandoah National Park. This is exciting because we have heard so many different things about this section of the trail. However, the first part looked and felt no different then the last 100 miles. But after about 15 miles in the terrain started becoming significantly easier. It still went up and down but it was not as steep or as long as usual. When we reached Blackrock Hut we had covered 25 miles in 10 hours (this includes an hour lunch break). It took many snacks for us to make it all the way there but the day felt fairly good for both of us. This was a pleasant surprise after our longest day so far.
On Friday the 13th, we decided to get off the trail. Not really, but my (LEGO) uncle, aunt, and cousin from Virginia Beach, VA wanted to come out and see us. We planned to meet up on Skyline Drive at 4:30 so we tried to hike as far as possible which would shorten the miles for Saturday. We hit Skyline Drive at the meeting place just minutes before they did. It's really nice to see family, stay in a hotel, clean our clothing, take a shower, and do our best at eating through a Chili's and a local Diner. After resupplying and spending more time with the family on Saturday we'll hit the trail for an amazingly long 1.6 miles where hopefully we'll meet back up with our group of friends.
LEGO & Redwood
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