AT Update: 500 miles, a quarter way through, and 600 miles!

Day 42:

Back on the road! We had time for a nice breakfast before we left. By nice, of course, I mean watermelon and hard boiled eggs. You’d be surprised what passes for luxury at this point. We had to walk all the way back through town to get back on the trail, so a decent chunk of our morning was spent along the road. Eventually, we turned off and started our climb back into the mountains.

We connected with the Laurel River pretty early in the day, and stuck with it for a good chunk of our morning. The first part was flat, so it was nice and cool down by the water, and the weather was beautiful for hiking. Something about walking along a river just makes the walk feel a whole lot better. Eventually though, we had to turn away from the river and start our climb up into the mountains.

The climb wasn’t steep, but it was long. It was about a miles and a half first, then a quarter mile of flat, then another 2 miles of up. But honestly, we kinda cruised through it. I think that after Georgia and North Carolina, this stuff is all feeling easy. I’m sure I’m gonna regret saying that in about 24 hours, but for now that’s the way I’m thinking.

After the last bit of climb, we reached a shelter, so we took a pause and ate lunch. I for sure overpacked in terms of food, so I was glad to eat through at least some of it. Honestly that’s the nice part of overpacking food, is I can just eat as much as I can stomach, which is a LOT. We probably spent around 45 minutes there before we decided to hit the road again. We only had 6.5 miles left to go before where we were staying for the night, so It was shaping up to be a chill afternoon.

And chill it was! It was mostly flat and downhill, so we were fully just cruising today. We met back up with the river, and also the Virginia Creeper Trail, a 34 mile bike trail through the mountains. It was kinda terrifying to have bikes whizzing by us as we were on the side of the road, but we made it out alive. After the bike trail ended, we had one more crossing of the river over a really cool wooden bridge, and then the trail finally departed.

The last part of the day kinda dragged to be honest. We walked around a lake that reminded me a lot of the Crim Dell, because it was absolutely gross. But that was probably the most exciting part of the afternoon. We had a little bit of a climb to get to the shelter, but it was pretty easy. We got to the shelter around 4, so plenty of time to hang out and take it easy before bed.

A lot of our friends started showing up around 4:30-4:45, so it was nice to have a group around for dinner. It was a very chill evening, and an early night. Somehow I always feel really tired the day after we’re in town, so I definitely decided to crawl into my tent a little earlier than everyone else.

I had a little bit of a eureka moment about some of my anger and frustration that I’ve been dealing with for the past couple weeks. I realized that I’m just simply bored. Which, on its own isn’t really a problem, but then I get frustrated with myself because I feel like I shouldn’t be bored when I’m out here doing this whole really cool thing. But to be totally honest? Walking 10 hours a day through the woods gets kinda boring sometimes.

Being with Lindsey doesn’t help, because she’s such a big forest person that whenever I talk about being bored she’s like “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” It’s absolutely not her fault, but it also doesn’t help my brain to understand that it’s totally fine to be bored. I’m glad I finally figured that out, so now I can actually deal with it instead of just being angry for no reason. That’s for sure a relief.

Quote of the day: “I speared the toilet paper with a stick…… and then ATE IT”

Day 43:

Late start today, but we’re only going 17 miles so it shouldn’t be that big of a deal. The big challenge of the day was a big climb up to the Grayson Highlands, but we had a few miles to warm up before that. When we hit the climb, I hit it hard. I was feeling really good today, so I kinda flew up to the top. When we got up, I kept thinking that surely there was more, given how much everyone was worrying about it. But nope, it was shorter than I thought. We finished 5 uphill miles in 2 hours. Lindsey did not have as good a time as I did, so we stopped at the top for a snack with a nice view.

Once we were up that first mountain, there was not too much more difficult for the day. We had to cross about 7 miles to get to Mount Rogers, the highest point in Virginia. The walk over to Mount Rogers was really nice, it was open fields pretty much the entire way. The flowers are finally blooming, and the bees are out in force. There were also about a bajillion and a half caterpillars out on the trail today, all inching their way along with us. I wonder if they’re trying to get to Maine too. It’ll probably take them a while.

The climb to Mount Rogers was longer, but less steep than our first climb. It was so difficult, per se, but it just felt like it went on FOREVER. Every time we thought we hit the top, there was more climbing to be done about 10 feet later. Rinse and repeat that cycle for approximately 2 hours and that what this climb was like. Here’s the kicker; we didn’t even summit! The trail passes half a mile and 500 feet short of it! All that climbing for nothing. Apparently the summit isn’t actually worth it, so we let it be and walked a tenth of a mile to the shelter to eat lunch.

After lunch was probably the most exciting part of the day. The Grayson Highlands are touted as one of the coolest parts of entire trail, plus we got to see the ponies. The beginning part was certainly gorgeous. We had stunning views off to the north, over wide open fields. It was really really pretty. And then we saw the ponies! They were really cool. And shockingly friendly. They walked right up to us and let us scratch them. One of them started eating my leg, which I guess was really salty and probably tasted pretty good. We spent more time than we probably should’ve standing there petting them, but eventually we pried ourselves away to finish our day.

The second half of the highlands was way less interesting than the first. First of all, there were no ponies, so it was nowhere near as fun. It was also super super rocky, so it took us a while to pick our way through it. Even though it was only like 3 miles to the shelter, we took probably 2 hours to finish the hike. It’s hard to look at the pretty views when you’re picking your way through rocks. But fortunately for us, there weren’t many good views to miss anyway. We eventually got to the shelter, only to have to walk a little bit past it cause we couldn’t tent there. But we ended up at a nice site down by the river, so for sure worth it.

Today was a pretty good day. Physically, I felt really really good. I was flying up the uphills like it was nothing. Mentally too I felt pretty good today. We had a bunch of really cool stuff going on today and I definitely enjoyed it. I’ve been a little stressed about my resupply, I have a box that is gonna be difficult for me to pick up, and I’ve been trying to find a way to get it. But it’s difficult for me to try and figure out a way that also works for Lindsey, and sometimes it feels like I’m just totally on my own with it, which is a little frustrating. But I think we figured out a plan for it, so we’ll see.

Quote of the day: “SHIT I think i have a tick on my arm *frantically strips off shirt* oh it’s just a pimple”

Day 44:

This morning was quite wet. IMOM tried to tell me he peed on my tent, but I’m pretty confident it was just condensation from the river. Anyways, I couldn’t pack my rain cover normally cause it was soaked. But other than that, we got off without much trouble, our usual 8 o’clock time. It was another decent length day, about 17 miles. We were greeted with 3 ponies pretty immediately along our trail, so that was a great way to start. We weaved in and out of pony fences for about 3 hours, until we finally crossed out of the park and back into the national forest.

We took a long break at our first shelter today. It was only about 6 miles up, but I think the day was hotter than we had planned for, so it was nice to take a decent break in the middle. We met a really nice guy there named Shane who had through hiked a few years back. He spent lots of time talking to us about our plans, giving us recommendations, and just kinda talking about life on the trail. It was great. One of my favorite things about being out here is talking to people who have done it before, and the love everyone in the community has. It’s quite staggering at times really. But after a while we decided it was time to press on, so we kept chugging along.

We stopped for lunch just outside the second shelter, 11 miles into the day. I like this cadence a lot better, big chunk in the morning, bit of a later lunch, then a lighter afternoon. It makes the day flow much easier in my opinion. Lunch for me consisted of a cold rice meal. I’m definitely looking forward to tortillas again, but I’m glad I decided to keep passover out here. There’s something really special I think to wandering for the entire holiday. Would recommend it, if you’re able. We were pretty chill about lunch too, seeing as we only had 6 miles left to go. I took off my shoes and even had time to dry out my rain fly! Good stuff.

The last 6 miles were definitely not easy. There was a little downhill at the start, but the last 5 miles or so was all up. Not steep, necessarily, but loooooong. We stopped to fill water by a waterfall, which was a very cool break. But we kept pushing on, and got to camp around 4:45. We’re just short of the next shelter, but we’re set up for a short day tomorrow, only like 11 miles. Part of that is because the weather is supposed to turn bad, so we’re hoping to get to the shelter and bunker down for the evening. Apparently you can also order a pizza to this shelter? So we’re gonna try and take advantage of that. Should be a good day, assuming we beat the storm.

Lindsey asked me today what I actually enjoyed about being out here. talk about a disarming question. But it definitely made me pause and reflect about it. We then talked about being out in the forest, away from everything and being in nature, etc etc. I think where the disconnect comes in is to her, the physical challenge kind of takes away from that experience, but for me that’s just a part of it. I think she really just didn’t understand that I also enjoy that aspect of it, and trying to push myself to go far and fast is pet of what I wanted out of the trail.

There was no malice in the question, but I would be lying if I said it didn’t make me a little defensive. I think it fed a little bit into that feeling that i’m somehow doing this “wrong”, which I’ve managed to keep in check for a while. I’m just glad I managed to take a breath and respond once I had my thoughts together instead of just snapping in anger. It was also definitely important to reflect on that, and think about what I want out of this, and what I’m enjoying about it.

Quote of the day: “I’m like a teenage boy, just a black hole.”

Day 45:

Up early today to try our best to beat the storm (spoiler, the storm did not come). The sun was rising when we left camp, and was up for all of 5 minutes before it got swallowed up by the clouds. It got quite a bit chillier after that, but once we got moving it wasn’t that bad. We have a very chill day, so our plan was to get to our stop before lunch, and eat at the shelter.

The morning started with a nice ridge walk, which was very pretty. It would’ve been a lot prettier if the sun was actually out, but again, it was very grey and stormy. On the bright side, there was no reason to stop, so we made really good time throughout the morning. We ended up getting to our shelter by like 12:15. We were super hungry, so we ate lunch quickly then walked over to the Mt. Rogers visitors center. Honestly, the place was pretty cool. It had a whole bunch of stuff about the plants and animals and history of the area.

We hung out there for a while, but then decided to hitch a ride into town to pick up some food for the next couple days. We got a ride with a random dude at the center, which was nice. It was only after he dropped us off at the supermarket and drove away that we realized we did not have a ride back. So that was fun. But, a problem for later. We shopped and bought some food (more than we needed for sure), and then figured out how to call a taxi. We got picked up by a dude that kinda looked like he was made of the same stuff as his car seats, but he was nice.

We got back to the shelter about 5 minutes before the rest of our friends showed up. It’s nice to have everyone here together, but there’s also a whole bunch of people here that I don’t know that I high key wish were in fact not here. But oh well, we’re all hiding in the second floor, so that’s at least nice. Tomorrow is gonna be a bit of a longer day, so we’ll see how we get on.

We decided to order pizza from a place that allegedly delivered to the visitors center, only to hang out for like an hour and 45 minutes to and call them back. Come to find out we got the only person at the restaurant who was new there, and they do in fact NOT do delivery. So 3 of us hitched another ride into town to pick up the pizza. Is was room temperature by the time we got back, but better than our rehydrated stuff anyways.

Not my favorite day today. I just had a lot of stuff running through my head. I know I said I was gonna be honest here, but some stuff I don’t think needs to be aired out right now. It’s nothing horrible. It’ll go in a day or two,

I’m sure. Also definitely a better evening than day. Glad things picked up, hopefully that keeps going. In other news, I finished the last audiobook I had today, so I am officially starting my list of things people have suggested to me. I have a solid list, I very much appreciate all the suggestions. I hope I have time to get through them all.

Quote of the day: “Consider yourself diddled”

Day 46:

Perks of sleeping in a shelter: you don’t have to set your tent up. Downsides: when one persons up, everyone’s up. So, 6:15 this morning, everyone was up! It’s alright, there was plenty of sleep to be had before that, and it’s always kinda nice to start the day early. We were in the middle of breakfast when Bibo and Molly showed up. They apparently woke up at 4:30 and did 10 miles before 7:30. Psychos. But after a quick hello to them, we got on our way.

The morning was a slow and steady climb up to a beautiful ridge walk. That’s probably been my favorite part about Virginia so far, the ridge walks are stunning. But it took us a little while to get there. The climb wasn’t particularly steep but it was pretty long. Right at the end of it we walked along some area that had been intentionally (i think) burned. You could still smell the ash so it had to be pretty recent. It’s cool to see good forest management going on. After that last climb it was pretty much all downhill and flat, at least til our food pickup.

Around noon we were approaching the outskirts of Atkins, the town where we had some food to grab. But before we could get there, we were stopped by a train. Just a literal cargo train. Right across the trail. We were there for like 10 minutes before it passed. It was quite the funny coincidence. But anyway, immediately after that the trail spat us out right on the side of the highway. Welcome back to civilization! We crossed the highway and headed about 10 feet to the left to pick up our food.

Turns out, we overestimated how long it would take us to get to this pickup. So we struggled to get it all in our bear cans. We had to have a LARGE lunch to make it work. But it worked! We followed the highway for about 0.3 miles before the trail finally turned back to the woods, our natural habitat. Right after town we ran into our milestone of the day; We crossed 1/4 of the trail! 550 miles! Absolute insanity. We’ve only gotta do that 3 more times! Honestly that doesn’t make it sound that bad.

The rest of the day was a steady downhill go our campsite. It’s been pretty uneventful here, other than consuming copious amounts of food and downing unhealthy amounts of cheezits. Kinda nice to have a calm night after everyone in the world was at the shelter with us yesterday.

It was a much better day today. Turns out, when you have a bad day, all it takes is one night of sleep, beautiful weather, and a well timed note from your brother to feel better. Who would’ve guessed! There’s probably something to be learned there. A big lesson so far on the trail has been “don’t like it? walk 10 minutes. it’ll change”. I guess that goes for the rest of life too. Anyways I’m for sure feeling better, and looking forward to a fun next few days. We’re kinda flying now, it’s sick. And we crossed 1/4 of the trail? Insane.

Quote of the day: “That’s a she Rhododendron”

We actually saw an owl today! When asked about it, Lindsey said “I wasn’t suspicious. I was excited! Now if I had seen a squadron of owls, then I would’ve been suspicious.” So the answer for today is however many owls are in a squadron.

Day 47:

Lindsey went off early today, so I had a late wake up and a pretty chill morning. By “late wake up” I mean 7:30, and by “chill morning” I mean leave at 8:30 and hike 9 miles by 11. But the morning was very flat, so I was pretty much coasting along. IMOM caught up with me around 10:15, and we hiked and chatted together for a while, before he remembered he’s way faster than me and sped off up a hill. I kept my pace a little more moderate, and landed at the first shelter by 11:30 for an early lunch.

After lunch the hiking was gonna get way more difficult. It started off by dropping down to a valley floor, but then was consistently going up and down for about 4 miles after that. The ups didn’t look that steep on the map, but boy oh boy was I wrong. Them things were kicking my butt. But honestly, I knew it was coming. It was really hot too, the hottest day we’ve had so far, so I was sweating buckets, and definitely smelled awful. But I managed to get through it.

After that adventure came the first real stream fording of the trip. Lick Creek used to have a bridge, but it collapsed a few years back, so now you gotta just walk straight through it. To be totally honest, the water felt really great on such a hot day, and I hung out down by the river for a solid 45 minutes. I also took a dip, just to cool off a little extra. But unfortunately, I had places to be, so I pushed along my way.

How exactly does any hiker want to end their day? Why, with a 5 mile, 2000 foot climb of course! And I hit it right at 2pm, just before the hottest part of the day. The good news? The first chunk was shaded. The bad news? That did not cool it down much. But at least I wasn’t getting burned alive (that would come later). I also ran out of water about 2 miles up, which was lovely. I crossed a water source after about a mile, but silly me thiught “there’s another water source like a mile up, i’ll be fine”. Learn your lesson kids, if you’re out of water and you cross water, just get the damn water. You’d think that’s common sense, but apparently not.

The last part of the climb broke out onto a nice ridge line for about 3 miles before the shelter. The good news was the ridge line had some amazing views of the mountains. The bad news is that there were no trees, and I was getting COOKED. Very good motivation to hike quickly. I finally reached the water source, and spent about 20 minutes filtering and chugging water before I cameled up and hit the last 2 miles to camp. The campsite is also beautiful, we’re gonna have a really good view for sunrise which is exciting.

Overall today was a really good day. I do definitely enjoy hiking on my own, for some reason it kinda feels like it takes the pressure off. I’m not really sure what “pressure” there is but I can definitely tell that it was not there today. And despite it being hot, it was a gorgeous day. The stream dip was a highlight for sure. Overall, really solid day. 8/10

Quote of the day: “That was a pizza not a feet” “Nah I don’t eat pizza”

Day 48:

My alarm went off PROMPTLY at 6am this morning. Why? Well, to catch the sunrise, of course! And boy oh boy was it pretty. Oh, also, we’re hiking 24.2 miles, so I wanted and early start. And an early start I did get. I was out by 6:50, a little bit behind Lindsey, but still early enough that I felt I could make good time for the day.

After a steep climb down off of our knob, the morning breezes by pretty easily. It was relatively flat, with only small ups and downs. The major challenge was that it was rather rocky, so you had to be careful with your footing so as not to trip and face plant. That would be less than ideal. I ran into Bibo, Molly, and Ziggy slack packing Sobo about 4 hours into my morning, so that was a really nice surprise! Apparently they’re getting a free cake for slack packing a marathon, so very happy for them. Also it means they’ll probably catch us tomorrow or the next day, so happy for us!

The early afternoon was spent climbing down off the ridge into a wide valley. The down climb was only supposed to be a couple miles, but it felt really really long. I knew there was a shelter at the bottom, but after I didn’t get there for a couple hours I wondered if I had somehow gotten on the wrong trail. On the bright side, it was really pretty on the valley floor. It was basically just a forest of shoulder high tree saplings, which was incredible to walk through. And I eventually did get to the shelter, although I didn’t stay long.

About 4 miles after that shelter I crossed a river and decided to take lunch. It was around 1, so a little later than I usually would eat, but I wanted to churn out some miles before I got hungry. During linch, Lindsey caught up to me (I had passed her right before I saw Bibo Ziggy and Molly), and we spent most of the afternoon hiking together. I’m not going to lie, the next 7 miles are kind of a blur. It really felt like we were doing the exact same thing over and over again for 4 hours. I swear we turned the same corner 12 times. It was crazy.

The blur was finally interrupted when we reached a road crossing. Well, crossing may be the wrong word, cause we followed the road for about 4 miles. It was yet another installment of everyone’s favorite game “is this the trail?” But it was, and it was not particularly fun. We eventually made it back to the forest. Good news! The bad news is that we had 2 miles of straight uphill before we got to the shelter. That’s right folks, we hiked 22 miles only to go straight up for the last 2. Im not sure how we made it, but we did. The water source at the shelter was also like half a mile starving downhill, so that was a pain. But we’re all settled in, after a big big day. Only 20 more miles tomorrow!

I felt pretty good today. I think I’m starting to enjoy the solitary hiking. I was caught singing out loud a few times (embarrassing), but other than that it was pretty good. I also feel physically shockingly ok after 24 miles? Definitely tired, but not awful. Maybe my legs are stronger than I thought. It’s gonna rain for the next like 5 days, so that’ll be fun to deal with. God I love weather.

Quote of the day: “You know wanderlust? Well let me introduce you to sheeterlust”

Day 49:

How do you follow up a 24.2 mile day? Well, with another 24.2 mile day of course! That was not, in fact, the original plan. But we’ll get there. The original plan was a quick, cool 20 miles. Easy, right? But the day was flatter than it was yesterday, so it felt very doable. Lindsey again got up early and left, but I slept in all the way til 7. By 7:30 I was on the road.

The early part of the morning was yet another ridge walk. And I do love me a good ridge walk. Unfortunately, this one didn’t have any views. It was cloudy, and on and off raining, so all I could see was… well nothing. My glasses always fog up a ton when I have my rain jacket on, so I could barely see where I was putting my feet. But by some miracle I didn’t trip and fall off a cliff, and the flat walk made to pretty quick going.

By lunch time I had wound my way down the mountain, almost 11 miles. I stopped to eat right before I started the “big” climb

for the day. It was only 500 feet over a mile, so I was expecting easy. And I got it! I absolutely flew up that thing. When I got to the top, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, the rest of the up to appear. It took like 45 minutes to realize that I was, in fact, done climbing for the day. It was great.

Around 2 I hit a road, and moved off trail for a little bit. I had a package to pick up about 0.5 miles away from the trail. And pick it up I did. I also sat and had a snack, a drink (root beer don’t worry), and relaxed. But I still had 8 miles to go, so I couldn’t stay long. Now normally, this would barely even be worth telling, but what happened on the way back to trail is important. I started to get a really bad hot spot (basically a pre blister) on my left foot. Like, so bad that I thought the skin tore off my heel and I was bleeding. I wasn’t, which was good. But I couldn’t walk more than 3 steps without having to stop from the pain. So what’s a person to do? Walk the last 8 miles in sandals!

Honestly, it wasn’t as bad as I thought. The walking was flat, and not particularly rocky, so my feet weren’t getting too beat up. But after about 3.5 hours they for sure started to hurt. But I made it. 24.2 miles, again. Absolute madness. And since I forgot to tell the story of why earlier, I guess i’ll put it in here. Lindsey texted me at one point and said “I don’t want to carry a wet tent an extra 4 miles tomorrow, I might push to the shelter.” I got this text at the exact time I was thinking “man i feel good, I might just push 4 extra miles to the shelter!” So I said, great I’ll see you there! Come to find out the shelter was full when we got here, so we will be carrying wet tents, but only 8 miles. Easy stuff.

I find Ive been getting a lot of feelings of nostalgia the last few days. I’m not super sure why, because there’s no particular direction to it, it’s just like old memories flowing back in. I’ve been surprised by the fact that all the memories have been quite pleasant. Even for things that I, at the time, distinctly remember having difficulty with, or flat out not enjoying. It’s kinda weird. But I guess when you look back from this far away, you only remember the good stuff. Lessons of the trail, so they say.

Quote of the day: “Don’t ask me questions, I’m taking a shit!”

Day 49:

Here’s the thing about rainy days on the trail: you’re gonna end up damp. Even if you’re in your tent, out of the rain, you’re gonna be damp. But honestly, after the cold and the damp, the warm and damp felt really cozy last night. But awake I must be, and moving we must get. So out of the warm damp tent we go.

We’re only going about 7 miles today, just to a hostel where we’re gonna do laundry and get dry. The hike started off really tough. Doing 48 miles in the past 2 days didn’t really feel like it was taking a toll, until we immediately had to climb 1000 feet in a mile first thing in the morning. But after that, easy stuff.

We got to the hostel around 11. This place is really cool. It’s basically a farm in the middle of the woods, they grow all their own stuff and make fresh bread and such. So we’ve spent a pretty chill day hanging out, eating, and waiting for our friends to show up. That’s all for today, honestly. Pretty short but pretty fun.

Quote of the day: “You just can’t wring out your urethra like I can”

Day 50:

It’s gonna be another short day today. We got up and ate breakfast at the hostel, which was probably the best breakfast I’ve had in a long time. Eggs, grits, oatmeal, yoghurt, fresh made bread, it was delicious. This may have been my favorite hostel stay so far. But unfortunately, it’s was time for us to go. We walked back to the trail, and started our 11 miles walk to Pearisburg.

We’ve been following the same ridge line for nearly a week now, and it wasn’t any different today. It was still somewhat cloudy, so not the best views, but we started to see a little bit of the towns underneath us towards the afternoon. It was a beautiful day, and the trail was flat, so we were absolutely cruising. We had done about 10 miles in 3 hours.

Those 10 miles brought us to angels rest, a beautiful viewpoint overlooking Pearisburg. We stopped, took some pictures, and hung out for a while. Eventually we continues the last 1.5 or so miles. We were finally climbing down off the ridge, down to the city below. It took us a while, like 19 switchbacks (we counted), but eventually we got there.

Just before we hit the road I started smelling ozone, and about 5 minutes later we started hearing thunder. We weren’t too too worried, but as we got down to the road it started POURING on us. Because of course it did. No worries, we tossed on our rain gear and we’re good to go. When we got to town, we ducked inside a dairy queen’s to eat fries and milkshakes like the 22 year old adults that we are. After that, just a quick run down to food lion for resupply and we can head to the hostel for the night!

My feet have been getting kind of beat up, so i’m grateful for another short day. I hiked in my Tevas again, and I think I might keep doing that for a while to let them settle down. Today was the first time me and Lindsey actually talked about the possibility of splitting up. Like for good. She seems really adamant about it, but i don’t know. Part of the draw for me is to do it with a friend. We’ll see how we work that out. I’m sure we’ll figure out something. And if we split, we split. It certainly won’t be the end of the world.