Friday, May 26, 2017
Remember when I returned to the trail after Trail Days I said I would let up on the gas pedal?
Yeah, that isn’t happening.
I need to put in 27 miles between now and tomorrow noon. That will put me at a road near Pearisburg, Va., where I plan to meet my wife Kim. Because it's Memorial Day weekend, she has an extended weekend off from work.
| Weather | Partly sunny, warming to the low 70s |
| Trail Conditions | Several sections with either rocks or roots, some heavily eroded sections, a lot of water |
| Today's Miles | 17.5 miles |
| Trip Miles | 626.0 miles |
No more rain fell overnight, so that was a welcomed change in the weather. Additionally, a light breeze helped dry out our tents.
The campsite was near a creek that fed into Kimberling Creek. Because of the several days of rain, the sound of rippling water lulled us to sleep overnight.
The people at Trent’s Grocery told us they would be open at 7:30, but it would take them a few minutes to get ready to serve breakfast, so Stick and I planned to start walking that way shortly after 7:30.
I needed to get going as quickly as possible to get in as many miles as I could today, but still, a nice egg and bacon breakfast biscuit was reason enough to delay my start. Stick was in full agreement with that plan.
Because we had a little extra time, and because the dryer in a nearby building was free for hikers and was available, I put my sleeping bag in it to dry while packing my tent.
By 7:40 I had put my now-dry sleeping bag in my backpack, and we were walking to Trent’s Grocery and our much-anticipated biscuit breakfast sandwiches. They didn’t disappoint.
Though the campground was, well, barely a campground, this was a nice place to stop. It wasn’t far off the trail, the food was good and the people were nice.
We were hiking back to the trail by 8:20 a.m. by way of the narrow highway.
Once we reached the trail ten minutes later, the going was easy though very wet. After a short climb the trail leveled out.
Just three miles later we reached a side trail to Dismal Falls. The name didn’t exactly advertise it as a worthwhile place to stop, but we decided to drop our packs and make the three-tenths-of-a-mile walk to the falls.
A day hiker took our picture there.
As far as I'm concerned, whoever named the falls had a much lower opinion of it than we did. It was a nice spot, and we stayed here several minutes.
The falls were a series of short cascades, followed by a longer drop. In all, the water fell about 15 feet.
Back on the trail, the walk continued to be mostly flat. Remarkably, the sun didn’t hide behind thick clouds, as it had done for several days. There were only a few clouds in the sky today, and we even got glimpses of the sun through the trees.
On this section of trail we met a large black snake, which also seemed to be enjoying the sun.
Though hiking on flat terrain is generally easy, there were times on this trail when that was a problem. There was no place for all of the recent rain to drain, so it just collected in a big muddy mess.
We had to carefully pick our way through the muck to avoid slipping and falling.
To make matters worse, there were again no water bars in place to channel water away from the trail. It’s unfortunate that the trail maintainers in this part of Virginia are not using modern trail construction techniques as much as their counterparts in Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee.
I realize, though, that trail maintainers are volunteers. Only so much work can be done in such a large section of trail that gets heavy use.
Near here we met a couple of section hikers, 12-pack and Coach. They said they were from the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton area of Pennsylvania.
During a stop for lunch later at Wapiti Shelter, I saw Bird. I didn’t mention it to him, but it was obvious he didn’t follow through on his plan to hike 30 miles yesterday.
From the shelter there was a long and sometimes steep climb up Sugar Run Mountain. In some spots, the trail was nothing but a channel of flowing water.
As I went up the ridge, I discovered there was cellular reception here, so I stopped to add some posts about my recent stop at Dismal Falls.
As the trail went over to the other side of the ridge, there was a big view of the valley bellow. I stopped here to enjoy not just the view, but the warmth of the sunshine.
From here the trail skirted past the high point of Sugar Run Mountain as it looped horseshoe-fashion around the valley, and moved away from the edge of the ridge.
There were some magnificent ferns through part of this section. The variety is called cinnamon fern. It has nothing to do with the spice, but gets its name because of the brown shoots that look like cinnamon sticks.
Ferns such as these are considered a living fossil because they can be directly traced to their descendants 180 million years ago.
At about the halfway point of the horseshoe the trail reached a road, which led to Wood’s Hole Hostel.
Many hikers have said in trail forums and websites this is their favorite hostel. It’s operated by a granddaughter and her husband of the couple who built the log cabin on the property in the 1880s.
From what I have read, it seemed like a nice place, and I thought for a moment about going there. I decided against it, though, because I felt a need to keep moving in order to meet my scheduled pickup time with Kim tomorrow. Hiking another hour today would mean one less hour to hike tomorrow.
Then I discovered a note Stick had left for me, stuck by the side of the trail. In it he said he was headed to the hostel, and if I decided to keep going he would meet me later at Doc's Knob Shelter.
By this time it was already 6 p.m. I decided I should keep going, but the considerate gesture was not lost on me. I thought it was kind of him to think of me. He knew I needed to keep going, and though he clearly wanted to visit the hostel, he also was willing to stay with me on the trail.
The trail continued its loop around the valley. It became rocky, but the rocks were mostly slabs. That made it less difficult to walk than most rocky sections, except when the slabs wobbled.
Along here, someone had created a marker similar to the 600-mile marker we saw yesterday, but this one was for the 1000 kilometers point.
The trail then went back up to the top of the ridge and there were more views of the valley. I was able to look back to the other side of the horseshoe, where I had previously been three hours earlier.
Stick caught up to me as I was about to arrive at the shelter. It was 7:30 p.m. and the sky was just starting to get dark.
The shelter was tucked in among thick rhododendrons, which made it hard to find flat spots large enough to pitch our tents.
Three hikers I had not met before were here, Crayon, Sun and Scout. After we set up our tents, Stick and I went over to the shelter’s picnic table to prepare dinner and talk to them.
During dinner I pulled out the trail magic Budweiser I had been carrying since the day before yesterday, that miserable day in the pouring rain.
I shared it with Stick. We celebrated a good day of hiking and our newfound friendship.
Wake of the flood, laughing water, forty-nine
Get out the pans, don't just stand there dreaming
Get out the way, get out the way
Here comes sunshine
Here comes sunshine
This trail report was published on