Category: Long Distance Trails

Start: Waynesboro, VA (AT mi 864.2) Stop: Rock Point (AT mi 848.7) Today’s miles: 15.5 miles Total AT mileage: 1344.4 miles

I decided to sleep in a little this morning, since I slept horribly.. it was stuffy and hot and sticky.. and I didn’t get a top sheet, just a thick cover that was too much most of the time. So, I didn’t get up until 7:30. I felt so gross from sweating in my sleep, that I took another shower before packing everything up.

Once packed, I took everything downstairs and then walked down the street to Burger King for an egg and cheese biscuit, or two. I got it to go and then ate it at the kitchen table at the hostel. The girls ended up being awake by the time I got back, and invited me to breakfast, before realizing I already got mine. Whoops! I snagged a Gatorade to pour into my water bottle, and then got my shuttle to the trail head.

It was windy at Rockfish Gap, but sunny and so comfortable temperature wise. I sat in the grass and put my shoes on, then loaded up my heavy, food full pack onto my back and started down the trail. It’s definitely got the feeling of less trail maintenance than while in the Shenandoahs, but it was still quite nice. Being a Sunday meant lots of day hikers and trail runners taking care of my spider web wreckage for me. I was grateful.

I basically climbed most of the day, slow uphills with switchbacks and smooth trail. There wasn’t anything treacherous or that had me huffing and puffing so hard I couldn’t breathe. I did stop for lunch at a perfect sitting rock with a blocked view, but it was more about the food than the view. I had issues with water this afternoon.. the streams are slow slow moving, little trickles that I had to finagle leaves in to make them “pour” into my water bag. It was a 15 minute ordeal to get water at one point.

I got to the top of Humpback Mountain without much struggle. The rest of the terrain was a rocky downward slope that meandered into deep woods and then out to rocky view points and back again. Originally I was aiming for a stream ahead less than a mile from where I decided to camp. I had already passed one rocky outcropped area with tentsites that were gorgeous, but since it technically was in a “no camping” zone, I didn’t push my luck and carried on. When I saw this spot, with its gorgeous view point and perfect campsite-and no signs saying not to, I claimed it for my own before anyone else could show up!

I did end up having a stand off with a huge black snake.. I lost, of course. Half of its body was in the middle of the trail, the half with its head! Obviously, I did my scream and jump routine.. that thing just looked at me. Didn’t budge. I’m not brave enough to touch a snake, even with my trekking pole, so after talking to it for 2-3 minutes in a panic, hoping it would hear me out and move.. I ended up going through briars, probably more than necessary, to give it a very wide birth.

Back to now, I technically need more water, but I have enough to drink a small bit in the morning to get my breakfast down.. and then I’ll just have to fill up at the steam within the mile. I couldn’t pass up a sunset at these views. I would say “and sunrise” but, we all know if I see it, it’ll be through the tent because I probably won’t get up to watch from the rocky point. Ha. I had a feeling the stream would be deeply wooded and less spectacular to watch the sunset at any rate, so, I’m ok with missing the water a little bit.

Once I got my tent up, stuff unpacked, and bear line thrown (this proved to be quite the annoying challenge tonight), I ate dinner while watching the sunset from a perfect sitting rock on a beautiful ledge. It was stunning! The sun was a big orange ball that I got to see sink down below the mountains ahead of me. Man, it was special.

While sitting there, after I ate, I started working on a little itinerary for the next couple of weeks. I don’t know how realistic it is, but mom wants to drive up to bring me some stuff and swap out gear, now that she’s roughly 6-7 hours away, and only getting closer the farther south I get.. so I attempted to make a “plan” to give a rough estimate of where I should be on a weekend she might be able to make the drive up. She knows it’s a guess and she may be having to pick me up at a random road crossing way off from expected, but I don’t think she minds that any. I’m not planning on taking a zero until then.

Tomorrow, my goal is to hike the 19 miles to the Priest Shelter, which is located at the top of Priest mountain.. so the last 4 miles of my hike will be straight up a steep ascent. Usually I prefer knocking out behemoths first thing in the morning, but to keep my mileage goals in check, it looks like that booger should happen tomorrow.. if I don’t make it to the top, there’s a place to camp at the bottom before the climb.. so, it could work out that way anyway. But I’m going to sleep with intentions of summiting that thing tomorrow.

Speaking of sleep, I think that’s what my plan is now.. to get some and catch up on my lack there of from last night. The wind is whipping through here pretty strong, I’m slightly concerned with the tree limbs around.. but I think I’ll be fine. I’m sure I’ll fall asleep soon and won’t care what happens around me tonight! Lol- Sweet dreams, y’all!

Start: Rock Point (AT mi 848.7) Stop: The Priest Shelter (AT mi 829.7). Today’s miles: 19 miles. Total AT mileage: 1363.4 miles

Dear God-What. A. DAY. Whew.. now that thats out of the way-I’ll start from the beginning.
I got up sometime just after 7. I hate that I’m back in my “refuse to wake up” mode-I had mostly kicked that habit in Maine.. anyway, I sleepily got up and slowly got moving, and then was packed, breakfast eaten, and ready to go by 8am exactly. I headed off down trail, keeping my eyes peeled for the water source, since I only had a swallow left. I ended up coming across it less than 20 minutes later, but because it was such a slow trickle, it took me close to 30 minutes to filter a liter and a half of water. Ugh.

I put my pack back on, now heavier with the water, and within 10 minutes found another trickling “stream” but with a slightly better drop from the trickle, so I would have been able to fill up faster from this spot. I was seriously irked. It felt like the birds were laughing at me, with all their chitter chatter going on around me, and then the squirrels chimed in, too. I may or may not have held out loud conversations with them, I may or may not have used a bit of profanity when I told them where they could shove their squawky laughs. Don’t judge me.

Anyway, after that slight hiccup, my mood shifted upwards and I continued to have a pretty good, although grueling day. The trail was a downhill meandering deal for a good bit of the morning, before I entered the three ridges wilderness. Then, it was a climb up and over a mountain, I guess with three ridges, lol.. it was long and irritating-mostly because it was rocky and hot and had bees everywhere. I actually put my bug net on for bugs.. ha. Luckily I was smart enough to eat my lunch at the shelter right before that climb, and get more water, so at least I wasn’t hangry AND getting swarmed with bees and mosquitoes while I ate.

The “views” on three ridges were obscured by overgrown trees and bushes, so while I could see the mightiness of the mountains surrounding me, they didn’t show up in pictures. But they were gorgeous either way. I kept moving forward and started the descent that led to almost painful knees. There were a few steps that caused a twinge here and there, but overall it was just annoying with the rocks and not too bad.

I got to a shelter at the bottom and filled up both of my water bottles. I liked this area, but I hadn’t hit 15 miles yet, and that’s sort of my goal, to hit a 15 minimum unless it’s a “get to town” day. So, I pushed forward. There was a river with a suspension bridge at the bottom of the three ridges wilderness, with perfect campsites.. but it’s close to a road and there was a lady there laying out in the sun that clearly just walked over.. I get a little unsettled about camping close to roads when I’m alone. You never know if a crazy person might try to come see who’s camping there.

Not to mention, this was only at 14.2 miles for the day.. so I needed to get a bit farther. At 4pm, as I passed this bridge, I realized that the top of The Priest mountain is 5.1 miles away. I had thought it was only 4, but realized where my mistake was made when I was planning. I was rounding instead of actually calculating, so I was off. I decided that I was going to push myself and get to the top of that behemoth today. I knew I’d probably be setting up camp in the dark, but so be it. I didn’t want to do it tomorrow morning.
In that 5.1 miles, I had over 3 thousand feet of elevation gain. It was most definitely the most difficult part of the trail I’ve done since being up north.. but even still, it wasn’t “hard” per say, there was no obstacle courses or pulling my body with my 30 pound pack up and over a rock face.. it was just normal hiking-combined with sucking a whole lot of air.

It took me until 6:25 to reach the “top” and then it leveled out as it winded across the summit to the side with beautiful ledges, which I paused at to take pictures of the sun setting. I wished I had enough water to camp right there, it was so perfect. But, with all my wind sucking I also drank almost all of my 2 liters of water.. whoops. Plus, I was absolutely soaked with sweat and really needed to wash off in a stream, and the shelter ahead promised to have that available.

So, I kept going. I was 0.2 miles away from the shelter, hiking slightly downhill, when a bear darted across my path and continued down the trail in the direction I was going! OH MY GOD. NOOOOO. He was fast too! Like, it kind of scared me how fast he was. I started yelling out “hey bear!” And “I’m still coming this way bear!” And “go away bear!” I never saw it again, but I’d hear it thrashing about ahead of me, or off to the left ahead..

When I got to the side trail with the shelter, I saw that the AT went right, the side trail went left, and the camping area was straight ahead. I set up my tent still loudly yelling, I even threw in some “anybody else here!?” “People would be nice!” “Hello out there!” With my bear chants. I never heard anything or got a response. Since the sun was going down, I quickly unpacked and got my food, water bottles and filter, anything smelly, and clothes to change into-then hightailed it to the shelter-still yelling-so I could get water, wash off, change, eat dinner, and leave my food down there somewhere, in attempts to keep the bear far away from me.

When I got to the shelter, 2 hikers were there! They never saw the bear and never heard me yelling. That’s a little unsettling. I started knocking out my chores. I ate dinner while chatting with them, they’ve thru hiked the AT twice and are currently out on a section hike. They informed me that there was no bear box or pole, but did say I could just leave my food with them in the shelter.. they were keeping theirs with them. I ended up hanging mine in a tree nearby, and told them that way if the bear eats them during the night, they couldn’t blame my food for attracting it to them lol. They laughed.

I finally gathered the stuff to come back to the tent, my clothes and headlamp.. I also carried a good “hitting rock” with me too. They told me to have a rock to hit it with or throw at it to scare it away if I end up startling it on my way back to camp. They had several throwing rocks in the shelter with them by the time I headed out. I have 2 in my tent with me now, and, also at their recommendation, I have my bug spray next to me too, just in case something goes real bad, I can spray it’s eyes with it-haha, I don’t think it’ll help me at that point, but whatever, it’s close by anyway.

I can tell I’m slap worn out, because while the bear scares the shit out of me, I’m so tired that I really just want to go to sleep and I hope if it comes sniffing around it just leaves me be and doesn’t do anything loud enough to wake me up. I’ll definitely put my earplugs in tonight! I don’t want anything, mice or rabbits hopping around, to make me think that big ole booger is back to eat me. I even have my dirty socks propped up on top of my other gear-along with my shoes, hoping the stench deters any and everything roaming around out there.

Overall, I’m pretty damn proud of me today. I can’t believe I knocked out 19 miles, with the last 5 being going uphill to the top of The Priest. I was giving myself bailout points along the way, “well if you get to the river after 4:30, it’s ok to just camp there..” things like that. But I did what I originally set out to do. It’s a good feeling.

Anyway, I’m going to try to sleep.. and pray I don’t have anymore scary encounters tonight. I literally just heard an owl hoot over me, so maybe it’ll keep the other creatures away. It also just confirmed that I’m not getting back out of my tent until morning, unless absolutely necessary.

Sheesh. Goodnight y’all! Praying for sweet dreams for all of us!

Start: The Priest Shelter (AT mi 829.7). Stop: Hog Camp Gap (AT mi 815.4). Today’s miles: 14.3 miles Total AT mileage: 1377.7 miles

Well, all my hoopla about nothing less than 15 miles didn’t withstand today.. although 14.3 is pretty dang close! The bugs and mugginess just did me in today. It’s technically only 5pm as I’m writing this out, but I don’t care.. I’m not going up and over nothing else today. Period.

I got up at 7. I slept pretty well considering going to bed thinking I’d be scaring away bears all night. That never happened.. although even between owl hoots and hollers, I did get out of my tent to pee-twice. I was kicking myself for chugging so much water at dinner, but it was RIGHT THERE and so easy to grab, that I couldn’t help myself.

I left my pack at the sign pointing to the shelter and then headed down the side trail to get my food bag and eat breakfast. The two guys from last night were just about to start hiking themselves! They said their night went smoothly, too. I had joked with them last night that if I got too spooked I was going to grab my sleeping bag and pad and walk down there to sleep in between them.. they retorted that I better make sure to announce myself so they didn’t throw rocks at me.. haha.. so this morning we were all laughs about how well we all slept even though we were all slightly on edge.

They left as I got my food down. I went ahead and filtered another bottle of water, to start off with 2 liters. Every comment in the app I use mentioned how everything is either dry or a slow trickle, so I didn’t want to get myself into a pickle. Then I ate my Poptart and headed back up the hill to my pack. I got my food bag in and was on the trail by 8:05. Not too shabby.

The trail was basically multiple ups and downs through very thick woods that would occasionally lighten up and give a view before going back into the darkness of the tree cover. There were quite a bit of gravel like rocks, almost like the trail maintenance people poured out bags of pea gravel and let everyone kick it around. So while it’s not “difficult” to walk on, it is annoying as hell.. especially when you step center foot on a rough edged one. Ouch.

Today felt more like the Rollercoaster than the actual Rollercoaster did. Maybe it was because my body is sore from so many big days in a row, and with yesterday being so tough at the end, I didn’t expect much out of today. I’m not sure, but I know I went down up and over 7 blips on the elevation map today, and I flat out refused to go over the last 2 to get me to where I had originally planned to camp. These ups weren’t hard. The downs weren’t either. But it was muggy and hot and the bugs were making me a lunatic.

I practically lived in the bug net, and when my head is sweaty and the air already feels thick, the bug net sets off my mild claustrophobia. It felt like I was suffocating at times. I’d pull it off in a huff and wipe my face with my too damp bandana, and immediately be swarmed with gnats, mosquitos, flies, or bees. Highly frustrating. Even sitting here now, they are absolutely everywhere, making me consider getting into my tent before dinner..

Anyway, enough complaining! I passed my shelter guys some time around 9-9:30. They seem Uber impressed with my speed, which I find amusing since all of my friends are faster than me, but I appreciated the compliment regardless. Shortly before 11, I passed two other men hiking northbound. They told me water was coming up on the trail and I should fill up there, because the water after that one was far off trail. I thanked them and then did exactly that.

While my water was filtering, I sat on a rock and tried to eat a probar for a snack. It was too early for lunch but I was hungry already. I got half of it down before I started gagging like I did the last time I tried to eat one back in Maine. I guess probars are out the window now. I just can’t stomach them anymore. This one was Blueberry Muffin, too-my favorite. Because of the bar I was nauseous for a couple hours afterwards. I tried a piece of airhead candy every now and then to see if it was better, but I just felt cruddy.

At the top of one of the many lumps I covered today, I did sit and eat my lunch-on another rock. It was about 12:30, and while I still had an uneasy stomach, I handled the peanut butter tortilla just fine. And then, I had another one-just to be sure. I stayed there for thirty minutes or so, before deciding to carry on. At this point, I was still planning to get to my original destination.

Then, sometime after 2, I looked on my app and saw a motel that would pick up from the area I was aiming towards.. it was just slightly farther than my original destination. Maybe a motel bed, air conditioning, and something better than trail food would make me feel better and perk up my mood. I checked the time and figured I’d have enough time to get to the parking lot by 6 or 6:30 at the latest. I decided that if I called and he had a room available AND would come get me-it was a sign I should go.

No one answered the phone. For some reason, this just depleted my soul. I was so sad! When I got to the top of the blip I was going up, I looked at my maps again and decided then that I wasn’t going over the next 2 if the field at the bottom of this current one had water at its stream. And then, I flung my pack off and laid in the grass under a tree. For almost an hour. It was the best part of my whole day! And I had a gorgeous view, too.

As I was laying around, still swatting at bugs every 3-5 seconds of course, I realized that I drank most of my water, banking on this stream having some. But if it didn’t, I’d have 2 gulps-hardly-to get me over those last 2 blips and several miles downhill to the next water source. Welp. That gave me some energy! Time to get a move on.

I popped up and hiked down the less than a mile to the field at the bottom of the current little mountain. It’s a beautiful meadow with apple trees and many others all around. I found where I wanted to camp, sat my pack down, and took my water bottles, water bag, and filter the 0.3 miles to the stream. Thank the sweet Lord there was water there!

I filtered my 2 bottles and then filled up the bag again. It has holes that I’m still “patching” albeit poorly.. so it leaks everywhere. I brought it all back up the hill to my camp and then set to work using the bag and filter as a mini shower to wash my legs off. Between the bugs, heat rash bumps, and spider webs, I may come close to losing my mind out here. When I get some decent service I need to google the temperature required for none of those things to be out and about.

While my legs dried off, I set up my tent and threw my bear line. Then changed my clothes and unpacked everything. It’s breezy here, so hopefully my clothes dry out some. I can only pray. I walked around the area, checking it all out.. I ate a couple bites of one of the apples, I don’t think they’re quite ripe yet. And now I’m just waiting for it to be a bit later so I can make dinner and then head to bed.

Because I stopped short, I won’t be getting into Glasgow tomorrow evening.. it’ll be the following day and that day will be a short day, which I’m happy about. The same guy that runs the last hostel I stayed at also owns one in Glasgow, too.. so I plan to stay there and maybe slackpack the next day. I’ll have to see what they offer and how it’ll work out.

Either way, I’m looking forward to town food. I think I’m getting sick of everything I eat out here.. but I’m too nervous to try new things in case they make me sick, and these things are light as can be.. so, it’s just what I have to deal with. There’s also a couple places to get picked up tomorrow, so if I get too miserable, I may do that. But I’ll try to be good and consider saving some money by getting to the hostel the following day instead of a motel tomorrow. Motels at best are $60-75 a night, the hostel is $30. Eh, I guess we’ll all see which will win, frugality or comfort. At this point it could go either way!