Week Nine – Farther Than Bill Bryson

Day 57, Monday May 15: The rain began sometime overnight. It wasn’t a heavy or driving rain, but was rather pleasant to listen to as it lightly pelted the tent. I woke up around 6:15am and decided it wasn’t worth rushing out into the wet world so I went back to sleep. Around 7am we decided to take it easy in the morning (first time for everything!) to give the rain a chance to clear up per the radar. I waited for a short break in the rain to grab our food bags from the trees, and we packed up our sleeping gear and had Breakfast in Tent. Once the rain paused, we broke camp and packed away the wet tent. We started hiking in a light drizzle, wearing our rain coats because it was a cold rain. I had purchased a new ultralight waterproof pack cover and recieved it this past weekend–and it was amazing! The water droplets actually beaded and rolled off my pack instead of just getting the cover wet, plus the new cover was a lot lighter than my previous 10-years old one. My favorite feature, though, is that it had a small buckle to clip around the shoulder straps of my pack to keep the cover in place. All in all, a significant upgrade! After hiking for a few miles in the rain, we were able to ale our rain coats off because it had warmed up and the rain had slowed. After hiking almost six miles, we were approaching Matt’s Creek Shelter, which we had seen plenty of signs from the National Forest Service that the shelter was closed as of 5/12/23 due to aggressive bear activity in the area. The NFS recommended camping no closer than five miles from the shelter, but as we got closer we saw a tent had been constructed less than half a mile from the closed shelter. We saw a young couple that we had met several times before, Lily and Dimitri, hiking up the trail towards us, followed by a Park Ranger with a rifle slung over his shoulders. We said hey to our friends, and then after I saw the rifle I asked what was going on. Lily and Dimitri looked at each other, and Lily told us their story. “We had a bit of a bear encounter last night. It circled our tent for an hour and a half, and once we could get away we walked to the road to call for help. The bear followed us the whole way there while we yelled and threw rocks at it. Dimitri dumped his pack and eventually it left us alone, but it was so scary!” They both seemed exhausted, and said they didn’t sleep at all since the bear came around. Lily was doing almost all of the talking, as Dimitri looked far away and completely shut down from his long night of terror. I couldn’t believe it. Their food bags had hung in a tree pretty far from their tent, just as they should have been. Dimitri said that his pack, which he left at the bottom of the hill, had rips and tears all over it from the bear trying to claw it open. It looked like Lily and Dimitri had done everything right, except for camping too close to the closed shelter–I wondered what would have happened if they had just slept with their food in their tents like some folks out on the AT do. The park ranger, a trim man who appeared to be in his early 50s with a short salt and pepper beard, said that there have been several instances of an aggressive bear in this area and that it was likely the same bear. He said the NFS was trying to find it, and it’s possible it would need to be euthanized if the incoming blueberries and raspberries didn’t ripen soon enough to provide the bear with enough food to survive. He said it’s still possible that the bear could return to “doing normal bear stuff” if there was enough natural food around, but he asked us to spread the word to anyone who doesn’t hang their food at night. “Unfortunately sleeping with your food is one of the worst things you can do in situations like this.” As much as I dread the bear hang every day, this was a great reminder that hanging our food is absolutely necessary and I wouldn’t skip it for anything. Besides, what else would I complain about out here if I didn’t have to do the bear hang every day? I told the park ranger where we had camped the previous night and that we didn’t have any issues, and he thanked us for the info and asked where we were planning on staying next. I told him we were headed for Punchbowl Shelter more than ten miles away, and he said “Eat your Wheaties!” with a broad smile. “That’s quite a climb up the mountain before the shelter, but you’ll have smooth sailing until you hit the uphill.” I thanked him for everything he was doing to keep hikers safe, and we chatted briefly with Lily and Dimitri before heading on down the trail. Dimitri had told us to take a gander at his pack at the bottom of the hill, and I snapped a few photos of the damage the bear did to it. Just one more reminder to take these warnings seriously. I was so relieved for Lily and Dimitri that they were safe, but even just hearing about this story left me shaken; I can’t imagine how terrified they had felt. I imagine they’ll have a hard time sleeping in the woods for a while. A few days later on 5/18/23, the Appalachian Trail Conservancy issued a closure notice for all overnight camping for this area of the AT between Petites Gap Road and the James River Foot Bridge because of the aggressive bear–we were so thankful once again that our friends had been caught up in this story and were overall safe, and also grateful that we had passed through this area with no issues.

After leaving our friends behind with the park ranger, we continued a descent into a river valley in a light rain. We crossed the James River Foot Bridge, which was constructed due to efforts by William T. Foot (get it? Foot bridge!) as a way for Thru-Hikers to cross the James River. After crossing we started our several-mile ascent up the mountains, once again climbing over 3,500 feet. We were treated to wide views of the surrounding valleys when the fog was thin, and passed more oceans of blooming rhododendrons and purple, pink, and yellow flowers. We passed a trail maintenance crew that was moving dirt and carrying rocks around in hardy canvas bags, fortifying the steps and slopes along the mountain top. Meadow and I thanked each person for their time spent on the trail as we passed between them, careful not to trip over their pickaxes and shovels. We both knew we hadn’t eaten or drank enough the day before, so on this day we took ample snack and water breaks.

We eventually reached the top of the mountain, and could see a vast valley with thick and thin clouds spread over the landscape. There were mountains in the distance that emerged from the thick fog like whales surfacing for air in a murky ocean. I could see puffy white clouds in the far, extreme distance that actually had the sun shining on them, even though I hadn’t seen the sun all day. After taking this in for a few minutes, we made the mile and a half journey to the Punchbowl Shelter to finish out our day. Despite our later-than-usual start to the day and many brief snack breaks, after 18.6 miles we still arrived at the shelter before 6pm. Meadow went to collect water from the stream and I dutifully hung the bear rope, albeit on a branch that seemed a little too thin to hold our massive food stores. We ate dinner and brushed our teeth and hoisted our goody bags up into the air, the poor branch bending and creaking under the weight. The rain started to pick up again just as we were headed towards our sleeping bags, safe and dry under the shelter roof. We chatted with some of our shelter mates, and I showed my swollen heels to someone who I found out was a physical therapist. She echoed what I had heard from others, that I should try to massage the surrounding tendons to keep things loose, ice it as much as possible, and stretch as much as possible. As the rain picked up and the daylight began to fade, our conversations began to be drowned out by the chorus of spring peeper frogs singing all around us. As darkness fell around 8:30pm, everyone went to sleep.

Day 58, Tuesday May 16: After a damp and humid night, the shelter and folks in the surrounding tents started stirring just after daybreak. We packed up our sleeping gear and made our peanut butter wraps with dried topical fruit for breakfast (one of our favorite meals!), hitting the trail before 8am. The air was still incredibly humid and the sky was overcast, threatening rain. A short three miles into our hike, we passed another milestone written in pinecones on the ground: the 800 mile mark! These milestones have been coming quicker and quicker it seems, and after passing so many of them it seemed almost a little redundant to celebrate. 800 miles is a long way to walk to see a pile of pinecones! But I still paused for a moment and reflected on all of the things that had transpired since we passed the 700-mile mark, and then we celebrated anyway.

We hiked on, and after a few more miles I startled myself by almost stabbing a woodland box turtle with my trekking pole. The turtle was just on the outside of the trail, apparently munching on some dead “bazillipedes” as I’ve taken to calling them. I didn’t see the poor turtle until it was almost too late, but luckily the turtle avoided being speared by the pointy end of a trekking pole. It didn’t seem to mind us stopping to gawk at it, even after I bent down to take its photo. The yellow markings on its back, legs, and head blended in perfectly with the leaf litter, which is why I didn’t see it until it was almost too late. We admired the turtle for a few minutes, agreeing that it’s piercing eyes were pretty creepy, and left it to finish its bug brunch in peace.

After the Close Encounter of the Turtle Kind, the next few hours melted into the miles that we hiked. We were in a closed forest canopy for most of the time, and the clouded-over sky made it difficult to determine how much time was passing. We stopped at a large brook to filter some additional water around midday since we were running low, and stoped for snacks at two shelters that we passed. We stopped at the second shelter around 1pm after completing about 10 miles for the day already, l and I ate a few extra snacks knowing that we had another 3,000-foot climb ahead of us. As we sat at the picnic table, Waldo (who we had just met the night before) also stopped into the shelter area for a snack before starting the climb; his snack included a few cigarettes and finishing the bag of peanut m&ms he had been eating all day. We chatted about what we had studied in college and what kind of backpacking gear we had, before Meadow and I decided it was time to start the climb. Even with our trail legs (and lungs) the climb was steep and long, and the heat and humidity made it even more challenging. Waldo passed us partway up the mountain as if we were standing still, basically running up the steep terrain. As the afternoon wore on it seemed to get dark very early; the rain clouds still looming overhead had turned a darker shade of gray. The suspense was killing me as we got higher and higher, and as we eventually hiked directly into the clouds–was it going to rain or not?! We climbed up over Bald Knob mountain, wading through both thick fog and thick grass that looked soft but was actually very itchy, and we stopped often to check for ticks on our legs. Eventually we crested the Knob and started down the other side back out of the clouds, and still no rain. We reached the turnoff for a 0.6-mile side trail that would take us to a shelter, but we had only gone about 15 miles for the day so far so we decided to get a few more miles in. We decided to head another 2.5 miles ahead to camp at an open area with some water, and so after another snack we passed by the shelter trail. We hiked up another 500-foot ascent over another high ridgetop, once again in entering the foggy rain clouds at such a high elevation. We passed through a relatively open meadow with some apple trees which would be wonderful to pass by in another few months or so. As we got to the top of our foggy climb before we descended again, the landscape opened up and treated us to a panoramic view of more fog, a blank white sheet. Amazing! After staring into the fog for a few seconds I could actually see the valleys far below us to the east, far away and so very foggy. And still no rain!

We hiked up and over the meadow bald, and descended down the other side for about a mile through a forest erupting from a carpet of ferns. When we got to a large open campsite, we found several tents ready set up. Waldo had just selected his camp spot, and we found our old friend Suntory setting about making his dinner. We picked a spot for the tent, and I hung the bear bag with relatively little trouble while Meadow set up the tent. Waldo started building a fire, and in order to get the damp wood to catch he just aimed his Jetboil cooking stove at the firewood until it dried and then started burning. In about five minutes we had a small conflagration that put out a ton of heat with a surprisingly small amount of smoke…it was strange and wonderful to feel heat coming from an external source instead of needing to expend body heat. We needed some more water, so we walked the quarter-mile blue-blazed side trail down to a spring. On the way past another tent, I told the resident (Terry, a mid-60s man with kind brown eyes and a kind brown mustache) that Waldo had gotten a fire going and he was welcome to join us. At the spring we filled all of our drinking bottles plus our bladder to filter the next morning, and made the quarter-mile journey back to our tent. Around the fire we talked with Suntory, Waldo, and newcomer Terry (no trail name!) about races and hikes we had done before, or hoped to do on the future. Terry told us about hiking 500 miles with his wife on the Camino de Santiago, one of the pilgrimage paths to the grave of Saint James in Spain that begins in France. Terry also told us about his work (and retirement) as a CPA, his wife of 40 years Susan, and that they had adopted a baby just three years ago that had been born into the social service system. Susan was currently following Terry along the AT with their three-year old child in a small van retrofitted to be a tiny camper, and the family of three was having the time of their lives. We haven’t had many campfires on the AT, partially because the previous cold weather has been sending people into their sleeping bags pretty early (or maybe that’s just Meadow and me!). But having a small fire burning between us made talking with other Thru-Hikers and meeting people like Terry feel even more like a real community. Just before 7:30pm, the first raindrops started falling which sent everyone scurrying for the safety of their tents: better to stay as dry as possible than risk getting soaked or even damp right before bedtime! Half an hour later, the rain was driving and water was quickly pooling beneath our tent. The bolts of lightning were close enough that they appeared in flashes of orange and green light, and the thunder’s response was immediate. We had pulled most of our gear all the way inside the tent to keep it drier than it would have been under the wings of the rain fly, which made the tent a bit more crowded than usual but but unbearably so. Although the weather was extreme, I was still tired from the day of hiking and this wasn’t exactly our first thunderstorm; I was able to fall asleep relatively quickly to the sounds of rain pounding the tent and the occasional burst of thunder.

Day 59, Wednesday May 17:

After a damp night’s sleep, I woke up around 6:15am to birds singing in the sunshine. The air was chillier than it had been in a while, but I’ll take a chilly morning over a downpour without complaint! We packed up camp, doing or best to shake all of the excess water off the rain fly that we could, and started our day. The sunshine glittered off of the dewy plants and bejeweled spiderwebs beautifully, making me forget the fact that my shoes were already soaked through from the wet grass. Sunny mornings after a rainstormy night have been one of my favorite types of weather to experience so far, even considering that a rainstormy night must be endured to experience it.

We hiked up and down a few rolling hills for several miles, and eventually got to the southern base of Priest Mountain: a short climb that had awaited us all day. Since we were already at elevation along the ridge, our climb was a relatively easy one. After making it to the shelter at the top, we decided to break for a snack right on the trail instead of walking down the side trail to the shelter. While we ate, our new friend Terry from the campsite yesterday hiked up to us and said “Key, kids!” in greeting. He stopped to chat, asking us about what our degrees were, what we did before starting the AT, and why we were hiking. Terry listened with interest and asked good questions, then asked us where we planned to camp. He said “My knees are too old to make it that far, but I’ll start heading that direction. When you pass me, try not to kick up to much dust!” And he walked ahead of us down the trail. As we finished up our snack break, a few other hikers we had seen throughout the day ambled back to the trail from the shelter. They asked us if we were going to go to the “Priest Shelter” (the shelter on Priest Mountain) to confess our AT sins. A hiker named Timber said that instead of just signing the logbook at the shelter, hikers had taken to “confessing” their AT sins in the book since the shelter was called the Priest Shelter. He said the worst thing he’s done in the At so far was to throw some wet wipes into the privies at least three times, and so he wrote that in the book. He said that some of the confessions were on the “steamy” side and were worth reading through. Apparently the logbook of confessions had left quite he impression as each of the passing hikers who visited the shelter suggested we walk down to take a look. Curious, but not tempted to do the extra mileage down to the shelter, we decided to skip the shelter and we started heading up the AT. After summiting Priest Mountain we had a 3,000 foot descent into a river valley, which was horrible on the knees. There were large rocky steps to walk down few switchbacks, and eventually we passed Terry again. “Hey kids!” he called again. “I’ve made it this far so I’m going down to the road crossing after all. I got ahold of my wife, she’ll be at the bottom in a red van if you need to dump any trash or get some water or anything!” We thanked him and continued on our knee-rupturing journey down the hill. Eventually we got to a spring valley cutting through the mountainside, the evening sun shining through to illuminate some of the trees above us. We filtered water into all of our drinking bottles, and I also filled our two-liter bladder to carry through for the next morning. By the time we had finished with the water, Terry had passed us again. “Hey kids!” We plodded down the mountain, our knees probably feeling older than Terry’s, and eventually made it to the road just in time to see a red van turning around. A pretty 60-something blonde rolled down the window and yelled to us, “I just picked up my hiker,” gesturing to Terry sitting in the passenger seat, “but do you guys need to dump trash or anything?” We said we didn’t have that much trash and that we were good, but thank you anyway. We waved to her and Terry has they pulled away to head to a campground. The Trail headed back into the forest across the road, and we found a spot for our tent next to a couple who had been hard at work setting up a campsite for several hours it seemed. They had a tarped-in canopy tent over their normal tent, and had an enormous pile of brush they were feeding into a campfire that was three feet tall. These looked like local folks who had come by to fish in the creek, judging by all the fishing equipment staged around their camp. They were using a hatchet and a two-foot long hand saw to cut the brush with, and as always it was quite a relief to see that our camping neighbors had so many scary tools in their campsite. After eating dinner we both voiced our concerns about a worry that had been growing throughout the week: we didn’t have quite enough food for the rest of the week. We were already running a slight calorie deficit up to this point, but now we would need to start rationing to make sure we had enough to at least get through the day on Friday. I ate one less snack for dinner than I normally would have, which wasn’t too big a deal, and called it good for the day. We brushed our teeth and hung the bear bags, then crawled into our sleeping bags by 7pm.

Day 60, Thursday May 18: The white noise from the nearby creek drowned out the morning birdsong, and I actually slept in until about 7:15am. Turns out our camp neighbors’ hatchet and saw were just for firewood after all! We leisurely packed up our sleeping gear and tent, and ate breakfast huddled in our fleece jackets. We knew we would be starting the day with a 3,200-foot climb up the Three Ridges, and so we took our time before getting started. Eventually there was no more water to filter and nothing else to pack up, so we headed back out onto the trail. Although the comments on the Far Out app stated that this climb was one of the most “F@$ked Up” climbs on the whole AT, we found it to be pretty easy. Sure it was rocky and long–the six miles of climbing didn’t exactly hike themselves–but it wasn’t insanely steep or excessively warm. We stopped for a snack break about halfway up, only eating what we really needed out of our dwindling food stores, but after a few hours we found ourselves at the top of the third ridge.

After reaching the top, we didn’t spend much time celebrating as we still had over 11 miles to hike. We wound our way along the ridgetops as the sky clouded over once more, crossing the Blue Ridge Parkway a few more times. At one of the road crossings, we saw two older gentlemen with grey hair and wearing bright orange and blue puffy coats sitting in the curb next to their backpacks, looking very much like two elementary school kids waiting for the bus. We exchanged hello’s, and I asked how they were doing. The guy in orange beamed and said “We’re going into town!” I said something generic about how that sounded great and I hoped they enjoyed it, and kept walking. He said “The shuttle is on its way and the total rate is only $35. You interested?” I said we had other plans for the next few days, and we kept walking. “There’s a YMCA where you can take a shower for $5, and a free campground.” At this point we had to stop walking because we were almost back into the forest, and he was still talking. “And in town they serve real food on real plates.” I had a feeling that he was trying to dupe us into splitting his $35 shuttle fee with him, but unfortunately for him we weren’t biting. We said we had other plans and wished them well before turning around and heading up the trail. Even still, he called after us and said “So I’m not convincing you?” ‘What gave you that idea?’ I thought. But I just called back, “Not today! Thanks though!” And we kept walking. After hiking on for a few more miles we paused at the Cedar Cliffs to admire the view, including both the cedar trees dotting the edge of the cliffs and the wide open expanse of the valley below.

At this point we only had about four miles to go, but they certainly took their time in coming. We had another relatively small ascent of several hundred feet, but the trail was built with rock steps that were over 18 inches high each, which were excessively difficult to climb especially toward the end of a long day with sore knees. After skidding along a rocky bald pate on the very top of the ridge, we found a wooded area with a fire ring and a few tent spots nestled between rocks and fallen trees. One other tent was already set up, and who should emerge but our friend Suntory! We had the tent set up and the bear rope hung within fifteen minutes, and Suntory joined us at the massive but unused fire ring to cook dinner as the temperature began to plummet. Meadow and I had our standard dinner of a Knorr’s pasta side pouch with a tuna packet for extra calories and protein, and I also had a Little Debbie cosmic brownie and a small chocolate bar–the total calories were in the 700s, which was pretty low for a Thru-Hiker’s dinner but all I could spare from my food bag! For the first time, Suntory told us about his previous job as an Executive Producer (he worked at Microsoft for twenty years and produced materials for the Minecraft convention every year–very neat!). He told us about how he loved his work but as the job became something that wasn’t ideal he knew it was time for something to change. The AT had been on his bucket list “for a LOOONG time,” and his sweetie supported him stepping away from work. He said his honey (they must be big on terms of endearment) was coming to meet him soon to backpack through Shenandoah National Park with him for a week, and we also talked about the weather forecast and some of our backpacking gear. After finishing up dinner, we quickly brushed our teeth, hung the bear bags, and dove into the tent for warmth around 7pm.

Day 61, Friday May 19: The air temperature had dropped into the 40s overnight. When I awoke around 5:30am I decided to stay in my sleeping bag as long as possible since sending home all of my cold-weather gear last weekend resulted in no longer having any long pants to wear. When the digging of the morning cathole became undeniably urgent around 6:30am, I left the tent and realized that we were once again in the clouds. The thick fog seemed to cling to the surrounding trees and our tent, and although it wasn’t actually raining the wind shook cold drops of fog condensation from the trees. I retrieved our food bags and brought them over to our tent, and climbed right back into my sleeping bag. We had another Breakfast in Tent morning, packing up all of our stuff and brushing our teeth from inside the tent, doing all of our morning tasks except packing up the tent before we left it. We laughed and joked about being cold and hungry, both still deeply enjoying this journey in spite of it all, tears of mirth coming to my eyes. Once we finally tumbled out of the tent we realized that early-riser Suntory had already packed up his camp and left. I was a little surprised that he left without saying goodbye, but since we had been laughing and singing songs about snacks in our tent he probably thought it best to leave us be. We started hiking with our fleece jackets on to stave off the damp cold, and warmed up quickly. After our climb from the previous day we were already at elevation, and had a hilly 12 miles to hike with no significant climbs up til we reached another major milestone: Rockfish Gap at the base of Shenandoah National Park! The air temperature crept upward throughout the morning, and the lush forest seemed to become more even more vibrantly green. We came up behind a Thru-Hiker that we had seen many times but never spoken to, and decided it was finally time to introduce ourselves. His name was Shane, and he told us that during the bad rainstorm a few nights ago he didn’t want to set up his tent in the rain so he just hiked theough the pouring rain and lightning with his headlamp until the wee hours of the morning…this seemed like a poor decision to me, but he didn’t die so it could have been worse! We chatted with Shane for a bit and then kept hiking. We passed a tiny spur trail that led to the Lowe Family Cemetery, where we could see eight to ten small unmarked rocks that marked the grave sites dug long ago. We passed the ruins of a tiny homestead, the rocky foundation and fireplace with chimney still standing alone. We saw another scarlet tanager in the nearby shrubs, its feathers a shocking blaze of contrast in the surrounding green ocean.

Around 1pm we stumbled out of the forest into an enormous and busy road, and made the short trip to the nearby pull off for Rockfish Gap. We had made it to Shenandoah National Park!! The difference in scenery was bewildering, and we sat down on a short rock wall to eat everything else in our food bags, about 600 calories worth of snacks. Our friend Suntory was also there, so we got to say a proper goodbye complete with fist bumps before his shuttle arrived to whisk him into town. A huge red pickup truck pulled over to us and a thin, tall man with white hair pulled back into a ponytail got out and approached us with a cooler. He said “My name is Alvin and that’s Elvis driving the truck,” he gestured to a happy dog in the front seat, “I’m available later this afternoon if you guys will need a ride into town. Will you need picked up from somewhere?” Shocked by his intentional effort to make sure we were taken care of, we told him that we had other plans for getting through the park bit we really appreciated the offer. He said “Okay, that’s great! Can I offer you a cold drink anyway?” amd held out a cooler of cold sodas and blue and red Gatorades. Again humbled and grateful for his generosity, we each selected a Gatorade (I was on Team Blue, Meadow Team Red) and thanked him effusively as he disappeared into his truck so he could take back the steering wheel from Elvis. As we sat there, Shane came along and said he was going into town. He told us he had run out of food the day before and needed to resupply at a grocery store as soon as possible. Realizing that he had just hiked all morning with no food, I instantly held out my untouched packet of pop tarts. “We are getting picked up from the trail in a few short hours and I don’t need these–please take them!” He held up his hand and shook his head while looking at the ground, saying “I’m not going to take your food, you carried that for you.” Both Meadow and I encouraged him to take some other things, anything we had, but he refused. He said “I really appreciate it, and if I absolutely needed it I would take it. Thank you very much.” He said he was going to organize his pack before hiking or hitching into Waynesboro, and we wished him well as he walked away. I couldn’t believe he had actually run out of food and wouldn’t take any, but sharing food between Thru-Hikers can be a pretty big deal since everyone’s resources are always limited…and as someone who night-hiked for hours through a thunderstorm to avoid setting up his tent in the rain, Shane seemed even more stubborn (or foolish?) than most Thru-Hikers. After finishing our snacks and Gatorades, we left our resting place to hike another few miles through the forest. We passed a white and black cat that was picking its way through the grass right next to the road; I called to it to see if it would come over and it ignored me, resisting even the most vivacious PSPSPSPS I could muster. Back in the forest, it was easy to forget that we had just crossed a major road. The sounds of Skyline Drive quickly faded and we hiked over hills and switchbacks through lush greenery, much as we had all morning. We popped out of the forest once again into McCormick Gap to a sunny blue sky, just as Nick pulled up. We had about two more miles to hike to the next road crossing, but hearing that we were on the hungry side Nick pulled out two turkey wraps and a massive container of one of my favorite foods on the planet: my friend Dan’s amazing pasta salad. Tears may have been shed as we dove headfirst into the gifts of food from afar, and we probably ate more calories in that gravel parking lot than the precious two days combined.

Feeling fueled up and ready to finish strong, we hiked the last two miles of our day for a total of about 17.9 miles, ending at mile 869.9. Nick had driven to the endpoint for the day and walked into meet us, so he hiked about a mile with us back to the car. Once we hit the car we headed to meet our friend Kyle at a ski condo outside Shenandoah National Park that we were able to book for a week as part of an off-season timeshare deal. As we walked in, the culture shock hit and it was hard to believe we would be staying in the same place for more than two nights! I was looking forward to using this condo as a base of operations as we hike and slackpack through Shenandoah, hopefully being able to achieve some higher-mileage days while also giving our bodies a chance to recover from carrying our full packs for most of nine weeks. After a great shower and an amazing dinner of homemade lasagna (Thank you Nick!) we chatted, stretched, and rested late into the evening before going to bed.

Day 62, Saturday May 20: Meadow and I wished each other a Happy Anniversary, since we started our hike two months ago on March 20. Time has been flying! We had decided to take a Zero Day to rest, which was only the third total rest day we have taken since we began. We all woke up relatively early but had a relaxed morning of cooking and eating breakfast (homemade lattes and blueberry pancakes with pecans and bananas…a far cry from lumps of processed whey protein out of plastic wrappers!!). We spent the day resting and stretching, eating (always my favorite part!), and doing chores like organizing our hiking stuff and doing laundry. I realized that we had walked farther than Bill Bryson. He completed just under 870 miles on the AT in 1996 and his book “A Walk in the Woods” became the most popular book written about an AT Thru-Hike attempt to date…despite the fact that there’s a photo of a grizzly bear on the book’s cover and we certainly don’t see a lot of those on the east coast. I’ve had the “Bill Bryson milestone” in the back of my mind since starting the trail, and it seems surreal to have surpassed him. We finished out our zero day with a steak dinner and more sweet potatoes (anti-inflammatory!), hot chocolate; it doesn’t get any better than that!

Day 63, Sunday May 21: The alarms started going off around 5:45am, prompting us to eat breakfast and pile into the car to head back to the Trail. Today was the first day I switched into new shoes since my old ones were beginning to wear down and get holes on the inside. Overall the new shoes (white tread) felt a little rigid and tight today, but by the end of the day they loosened up and were definitely preferable to my old ones (grey tread). I will probably still keep these old shoes to wear once I get off the trail, but not to walk any more hundreds of miles in!

We started hiking around 8am in a chilly but sunny morning, for the first time in a few days seeing a wide open blue sky. Our friend Kyle has decided to join us for the 20-miles we planned to hiked, and he did great. We started our day in a wide open meadow, climbing up to the forested trail that would be our home for the next twenty miles. The terrain was comparatively flat, and our small day packs felt like feathers compared to our normal backpacks. At times I would worry that my two-liter water bladder and all of my snacks had fallen out and I was just carrying an empty backpack because it was so light. Bit the lighter pack is certainly easier on the body, which is why they call it slackpacking! The temperature rose into the high 70s for the day, but there was a light breeze and we spent most of the day I der the cover of the Long Green Tunnel (leaf cover), so I didn’t feel as if I was overheating. We passed quite a few day hikers and trail runners, saying hello to each one. We met another Thru-Hiker named Papa Smurf because of his blue shirt, red hat, and white beard. He told us that he had started his hike in 2022, but then put it on hold to finish up a few things before selling his house and moving in with his daughter. Papa Smurf was very friendly and very funny, openly ridiculing us when he came across us taking a snack break late in the morning. He gestured to us sitting on the ground and eating, “This is why they call you guys SLACKpackers!” We did have a few small ascents and descents during the day’s hike but nothing extreme; the Appalachian Trail Conservancy says that the sections of the AT through Shenandoah National Park are great for beginner hikers. We did have a 1,000-foot climb (the horror!) that took us about a half an hour to get up to the top of Blackrock Mountain, with large, angular and sharp-looking boulders in a rock scramble at its peak. I did some climbing up to the summit to get a better view, which was worth it–despite the risk of falling and the enormous black spiders that scuttled all over the rocks.

After this sunny break we had about five more miles to hike before we reached our end point for the day, completing 20.4 miles! Although the terrain and conditions were “easier” than normal, Meadow and I were still pretty tired once we reached the end. Kyle said his feet hurt, and ours did too–so at least he got the full AT experience! After returning to our lodgings for the week we enjoyed another home-cooked meal of salmon and veggies and spent the evening resting. Nick made us chai hot chocolate lattes, which quickly became one of my new favorite ways to pack on the pounds. We stayed up a little too late, bit still did the responsible thing and packed up our bags for the next day’s hike before trundling off to bed.

We hope to do a few more 20-mile days this week through Shenandoah, and will be in Harper’s Ferry in less than two weeks. It’s still hard to believe that we are this close to Harper’s Ferry, the conceptual halfway point of the trail even though it’s not the actual halfway point, but we are still staying focused on completing the miles ahead of us and not looking too far ahead. I have enjoyed spending time in Shenandoah National Park during previous visits and the time on the trail so far has been no different; there is still plenty more to look forward to in the next few days!

Thanks for stopping by!