Day 39, 7-23-07

It was an odd day today. It was cold and late when we woke up, but it cleared up nicely and warmed up as well, so it wasn’t too horrific. VA had been really good to us so far, all the trails were kept up very nicely, with a minimum of undergrowth and assorted other trail annoyances that you run into when dealing with a trail that’s gone to seed. Anyway, it starts to rain. We put on our pack covers and keep moving. It starts raining harder, so we put on our rain jackets and keep going. It keeps raining. We were hoping to camp alongside this creek, but when we arrive there, its on the side of a cliff, and there’s nothing nearby to camp at. Nothing at all. So we keep going, looking for a spot. Eventually, we end up at Trimpi Shelter, 20 miles from where we started. When did we plan on doing a 20 miler? But oh well. So this shelter had been made a while ago, and was built of stone. It also had a fireplace built into it. After Caleb and I set up, he has the idea to start a fire. I start looking for wood, and he steps in. ‘Greg, you aren’t going to find anything that’s on the ground that’ll be good. The rain would have soaked into it by now, and it will all be super hard to light.’ ‘Well, what do we do?’ ‘We look for dead trees’. So we found a few that were standing around the random camping area. Caleb grabs on side, I grab the other, and we start shaking. Eventually it starts working loose, and falls. We drag this log over to where two trees are growing close together and use that as a leverage point to break this tree into smaller pieces. Then we repeat for a few other trees, until we had a decent pile. And then: fire! It was the first (and last) fire we made on the trail. It was totally worth it. All our stuff got dried out, and that was glorious. The wood supply ended, and it was dark, so that was the end of the day for this particular event-filled day.

Before the rain.













Another Dr. Seussian Flower. I liked it.


















There was a whole field!













C on a bridge. Rain? Perhaps.













The fire of wonderfulness. I don't know whose legs those are.

Day 38, 7-22-07

Today was long. There was a lot of climbing involved, and that always makes things long. It was about 3500’ all told. It was a lot like hiking through Rohan, for all you Lord of the Rings people. Lots of rolling plains, fields, and boulders strewn about the landscape. Both C and I thought of Rohan independently, and then mentioned it to each other, and went ‘yeah!’. This was the Grayson Highlands area in VA. I would recommend doing it to someone who wants to see some really just striking landscape…although the Smokies still take the cake. There are also Wild Ponies roaming about the Highlands that you can meet and pet on your hike. We met a few groups of them, and some didn’t want to play, but some were very happy to swing by and say hi. So we said hi to them, and they were pretty awesome.

I earned my trail name today. For a while, Caleb and I were thinking of switching it to something that was less…incriminating. Today…well, it started at breakfast. Mom had been mailing us this really tasty granola in a large plastic bag. I got it into my head that I needed to mix it well, so that the dried milk that had fallen to the bottom would be evenly dispersed throughout the cereal. So I turn the bag upside down and start shaking. The inevitable happens, but I was able to limit the amount of cereal lost. Being horrified at missing food helps with that. At lunch I bobbled my bagel after it was loaded with Honey and Peanut butter. They normally are messy, but I stuck my fingers all over what I was going to eat. Not really a good thing, given the condition of my fingers at the moment. Not the most sanitary things in the world at that point. At dinner, I almost dumped our rice pudding stuff over. Which would have been sad times. Once we got to the shelter, we met Mother and Speed, two guys that were hiking a bit and planning on peeling off a day or two before we were. It was cool to have company again. They were both paramedics, and Justin had made it to med school, which was super exciting. He should be slogging through the remnants of his first year at ECU right about now, actually. It was cold, and there wasn’t a good place for us to set up, so we set our hammocks up in the shelter and went to bed early.

Today was full of awesome views...













A neat little scrubby tree.


















So Close and C on a rock.













View...













More view...













Once again...













The trail running by a scraggly fence.













Mt. Rogers is the highest point in VA. C and I didn't want to go up, because everything we'd heard about it said that it was totally treed in, and neither of us wanted that hassle.










Me on a rock.













Caleb, ruling the world.













The Grayson Highlands ponies, and some random people up for the day from Damascus.












A mother and her colt.













More ponies!













This one was my favorite.













My hammock, set up in the shelter. It was oddly cold, for some reason.

Day 37, 7-21-07

For some reason, it always takes longer than it should to get out of town. We run a few errands, pay, and swing by ‘Damascus Eats’ (super tasty!) for breakfast. Banana pancakes. Super tasty. We start hiking at about 11. Crazy. There were about 15 miles slated in for the day. Looking at the respective maps/roads, we had picked an extraction point about….100 miles from where we were. We would have to cover about 15 miles a day so we could show up on time for the rendeavous. So there wasn’t a problem with this day, except for one. Caleb and I were motoring along pretty well. At some point, the AT joins a bike path (the VA Creeper Trail) for a little, before breaking off again. We’re going down this, and run into a large group of people who had all sacked out on this section of trail. We exchange a few pleasantries, and then keep going. About a mile and a half later, we realize that we hadn’t seen a blaze in a while. So we start tracing back our steps. We trace, and we ask, and we wonder, and we find that the big group had plopped down right where the AT branched off, and set their packs against the sign that said ‘AT” with an arrow pointing towards where the AT branched off. C and I weren’t the happiest campers at that moment, but oh well. At least it was a nice flat path that was really easy to walk on.

A neat view.













A snake...its a little below the trek pole.













A bridge on the VA Creeper and AT section, right before we went past the turn off.

















Another view of the river/bridge.

Day 36, 7-20-08

Lazy Day. For obvious reasons. Although I don’t think any of us were sore. Which was nice. We ate breakfast in a Gas Station Grill thing that was a lot tastier than I thought it was going to be. And then we went down to the BB&T. I got my card back, and the first thing I did with it was stick it right back into the ATM. If at first you don’t succeed…it worked this time. To the PO to pick up our package, and then bummed around town a little bit. Lunch at a cool little spot called the ‘Old Mill.’ We had a nice view of a waterwheel and dam with ducks and stuff waddling around. Good times. Then I victoriously bought ice cream. Bummed around some more. After dinner, I was really needing a cup of tea. I wasn’t carrying any with me, and that was a mistake. It’s so tasty, and a few teabags are so light, that it would be worth it to have some on me all the time. Anyway, I’m about to walk all over creation to find some. There’s a supermarket about ½ mile down the road, and I’m ready to truck along this highway in order to secure some, when I decide to pop in to the other couple’s room and see if they need anything. They had arrived that day (SOBO [southbound]), and the male half had picked up a pretty rotten stomach bug from some Summer Sausage gone bad, so I figured they would need something. So I tell them, and they’re like, no, we’re good, but we’ve got some tea, if you’d like some. So I had some of their wonderful tea, and it certainly made my evening. I took that down to a puzzle I had started working on, and drank tea and messed with the puzzle…I was clean too…I felt almost human…weird. We didn't take any pictures this day...I don't know why. They just didn't occur to me. It was a nice place though. Very small, but nice.

Day 35, 7-19-07

Midnight. We take a picture, and then strap headlamps on and start walking. It was odd. So quiet, and the dark all around was…weird. It felt very surreal. The blazes became really important. The trail blended in with the forest floor, so going off track was easier than in the daylight. At one point, a deer is next to the trail. We all hit it with our headlamps, and it freezes, but it doesn’t move, it’s just standing there, about 10 feet from us, staring us down as we trundle along. Then it got foggy. This was around…maybe 3 in the am? My headlamp wasn’t as strong as So-Close’s or Calebs, so I was letting them lead. Then I need to stop for a bit, and they kept on going (I told them to, I didn’t want to hold them up). When I started again, the fog had encroached, and all I could see was a tiny little patch of the trail in front of me, and random trees looming out at me. I was walking by feel, if it felt like trail, cool, I’m going on the right path. It was a touch creepy. Blazes became super important. Sure, they are in the daylight, but the trail is always obvious. As night, with fog, they are essential, because getting lost would be terrible. And that would also mean the end of the 40 mile challenge. There were a lot of neat thoughts spawned by that bit of hiking regarding the nature of knowledge. Eventually, I think they got worried because I hadn’t caught up (normally, the person who decided to chill out has motivation to catch up, but I could only move so fast) and waited for me, so that was cool. At around 6-6:30 we find a shelter and plop down for breakfast. We had already covered 14 miles, which was really good. They were going really well too, nothing had been terribly hard. We were starting to get color working into the day though, and that was nice. It’s always nice to be able to see things around you. After a bit we passed a woefully depressing monument to a guy named Nick Grindstaff. The inscription read: ‘Lived alone, suffered along, died alone.’ We hit the 20 mile mark at 9. And kept moving. Ate lunch. Kept moving. At about 2 we hit the 30 mile point (there was a road at about the 20 mile area, and a shelter at the 30). At this point, we all kinda collapse. Our legs are feeling good, but starting to get tired (really?). My feet were just starting to ache from getting pounded on for longer than they had ever been before. 4 miles from Damascus, we come to the TN-VA line. We all took pictures. We still had 4 miles to go. When you cover ground on the trail, you’ve got to stop thinking about covering ground on the trail. We were doing about 2 mph, but that’s nowhere near enough to think about miles slipping by. You have to look around, enjoy the trees/scenery/anything and everything else, or you’ll drive yourself nuts thinking about the ground you aren’t covering. The physical challenge presented to us by 4 more miles wasn’t that bad, compared to the rest of the hike that day. But mentally…I was starting to feel a bit strained around the edges. It was getting harder to stop thinking about the distance. At some point, I just wanted to stop walking. Then we get to Damascus. Finished! 40 miles covered in one day. That’s a lot. Through the day, there were two times I got really sleepy. One time, in the early am, I could feel myself started to nod. It’s a very odd feeling, falling to sleep while you’re walking. I started talking semi-incoherently about Aristotle. It worked out. I forget what I talked about the second time. So we get to Damascus, find the Hostel we were going to be staying at, and drop all our stuff off. It was called ‘The Place’. We go to a Mexican place and kill a burrito with extreme prejudice. Then we went to go get ice cream. There was an ice cream shop right around the corner. Cash only. No biggie, there’s a BB&T next door with an ATM. The ATM promptly eats my card. And then locks up. Nothing is happening. I’m standing there on wobbly legs, after having walked farther than most people ever will in one day, looking at a frozen ATM that is standing in the way of me, and a very richly deserved mound of ice cream. All I wanted was ice cream. That’s all. It was going to be so tasty. So cold and sweet and now this ATM sneered at me with orangy-yellowish letters and said: Press a key to continue. So I walk back to the Place to get a phone, to call the helpline, and get an answer. They tell me to just go back tomorrow when the bank is open. Ok. So-Close and C aid me in my ice cream quest, and we all go back to the Place and crash into an insensate sleep.

Us, ready to roll!


















A Stairway that was going down to the dam below. It looked like a stairway into an abyss. It was kinda cool.

















The monument to the sad guy.


















Halfway! That's a two and oh held up. 20 miles down, 20 to go.













Caleb at halfway, feeling strong.


















A neat rock wall thing.


















An awesome orange newt.













The 10 mile shelter, with the cool open woods around it.


















VA!













TN-VA line!


















Caleb at the Line.













Me at the line.













40 miles down. Damascus, VA. That's certainly the longest I've ever walked in a day.

Day 34, 7-18-07

We took it very easy today, since we knew that we were going to be battling the 40 mile challenge starting at midnight (the beginning of 7-19), and rolling until we hit Damascus, VA. We all wandered to the PO, where C and I got a ton of stuff from the family, as well as a great surprise from some good friends of the family, the G’s. They made us some granola bars from…granola they had made, actually. Super tasty. We had to try them immediately. Then we wandered over to the internet café and paid to get online. It was fairly inexpensive, so worth it to drop a few emails and say hi to everyone, as well as to place my internet payment for the student loans I’ve got going on. Then we went back to the Hostel and selected all the food we wanted to take. There was a lot that we were going to mail ahead, because there was no way I wanted to carry all that was sent us along the challenge. I decided to hang onto my sleeping equipment though. You never know, and 40 miles is a long way. Brown gave us a ride to the trail in the back of is truck. He was…such an odd character. If/when I hike this again, I’ll stop by the Kincora hostel, (on the other side of the mountain), rather than that one. I’ve heard nothing but glowing praise for Kincora, and Brown’s….eh. So we hiked the 3 miles to the shelter were the challenge started, set up, and tried to sleep. It was like trying to sleep before a race…it was so hard to do. I think I might have gotten….I don’t know…maybe an hour? Two? It may have been that the time was so short as to seem shorter, I don’t know. Anyway, alarms go off at 11:45, and we are up and packing.

Me lounging on a papasan in the Hostel.













The sitting room for the hikers.















Bathroom, and the tub of 1000 leaks.
















A really awesome butterfly bush.













C and So-Close outside of the hostel, ready to roll

...coming soon

I had typed up a lot of these on a several hour marathon session over Christmas break, which is why they've been fairly regular in showing up. However, yesterday's post was the last of those, and there are still 11 days left in the trip. So they will be forthcoming, but I've got to return to the journal, etc, to unearth/remember what we did and where/with whom we did it with. In the meantime, I would suggest picking up a book. I would highly recommend a few, at the moment I'm savoring 'the Ball and the Cross', by GK Chesterton. It's about an Athiest/agnostic and a Roman Catholic that are trying to kill each other. However, they can't seem to find a quiet place to have a duel. It's quite awesome. Hilarious, and then there's serious issues discussed throughout. The Role of Nature and Philosophy in conflict, the nature of friendship, and obviously, Athism vs Christianity. Also on your list should be a charming little book called: 'Wendal, His Cat, and The Progress of Man.' It's very short, but it's very good. Everyone should read it. 'The Prophet', by Kahlil Gibran also makes the 'Everyone Should Read' list. So now that you've got something to do, I'll get to what I need to do, and the normal posts will resume shortly.
Thanks for your time!