Mountains Under Foot

From Hazard’s notes:
Day 33: June 11, 2009
Travel:
From: Partnership Shelter, VA
To: Va. 683, US 11, I-81, (Atkins/Marion) VA @ the Relax Inn
Beginning: 7:45am
Ending: 11:30am
Number of miles hiked:
a) Trail – 11.6
b) other
c) AT Mile Marker – 538.3 cumulative
Weather:
AM: Torrential downpour for what felt like hours this morning.
PM: Sun came out for a little while then poured down again for hours.
People: Ran into Sal again, he had spent two days in Marion watching his basketball games in comfort.
Animals: Skunk on the trail.
Money: $30 resupply (price gouged like crazy), $25 for room at the Relax Inn. $5 for dinner at The Barn. $719 Cumulative.
Notes of the day:
AM: Last night was the worst night in a shelter so far this hike. It was warm and dripping wet outside and every biting insect in the woods would not stop eating me or everyone else. The constant biting kept me from going to sleep for hours. I also didn’t feel very well otherwise, my best guess was dehydration. So I got up and filled my Camelbak and had a drink. That helped but could still not get to sleep from the bugs. I tried putting on my fleece which was long-sleeved to give them less surface area to bite. With this solution I think I got a few hours of sleep. I was so miserable I actually dreamed that I took all my stuff and walked to a different shelter, in fact in my delirious state of mind after that I actually thought I was there. When the sun finally came up I learned my night matched everyone else’s. So Spoon and I were exhausted and grumpy all morning. When we got on the trail things didn’t get any better as the thunder rolled overhead. The rain was oppressive and cold, the dark clouds and thick woods made it so it felt like we were hiking in the dark. Obviously moral was plummeting fast. I called out to Spoon and asked, “Are we having fun yet?” and he turned to me and replied “It’s times like these I wish I were at home”. Clearly we needed to rethink our day. Thankfully, it was a resupply day and we could make the decision to end the day early in town.

PM: Got a room at the Relax Inn and took some well deserved showers and put on some dry clothes. Next step was to take in some TV, namely “Meet the Parents” on HBO before heading out to try and get a ride to Atkins for resupply. Got a ride in to Atkins and then got “ridden” by the absurd prices at a glorified gas station grocer. Came back to relax some more in front of the TV before putting our clothes in the wash. On the way to dinner we switched the clothes to the dryer. The sleepless night really set in while at dinner as Spoon looked like he was going to fall asleep on his burger. Came back to the room to write this and sleep.
Un-inspirational quote of the day: “I am so done with this day”. -Spoon

From Hazard’s notes:
Day 32: June 10, 2009
Travel:
From: Wise Shelter, VA
To: Partnership Shelter, VA
Beginning: 7:00am
Ending: 6:45pm
Number of miles hiked: New Record!
a) Trail – 30.6
b) other – Spent a mile on Bear Pen trail.
c) AT Mile Marker – 526.7 cumulative
Weather:
AM: Overcast with the sun peeking out for a few moments.
PM: Dark clouds hovered overhead for a long time and then around 4:30pm nature’s fury came down upon us for about 15 minutes soaking us through. Then almost exactly two hours later it rained again.
People: Met Churchmouse who got his name for sneaking into the Fontana Hilton at 12:30am without waking anyone. Caught back up with Nick and Dan who we stayed with at Lost Mountain Shelter two nights ago.
Animals: Saw a deer bounding across the highlands in the distance. Then there was another who ran off the trail in front of us. Owls are making a ruckus tonight.
Money: $18 for dinner, $659 cumulative.
Notes of the day:
AM: Got up at 6am and ate breakfast and got water. We were cruising down the trail and I guess we didn’t take the right turn because we ended up on the Scales trail then had to cut back across over the Bear Pen trail to get back on the AT. Eventually we got things moving in the right direction. We only stopped for a candy bar when we reached Hurricane Shelter. It was up a bunch of steps and we couldn’t see it from the trail so we ate while sitting on the bottom step. As we were leaving a guy playing sitar music from a music player came up the hill. Apparently he also plays the sitar…interesting. We were on a tight schedule so we didn’t ask any more questions.

PM: We hiked on until we hit Trimpi Shelter for lunch around 2:00pm , which is where we met Churchmouse. It was another 10 miles to Partnership so we ate and got water as quickly as possible. But not without first checking out the new privy which was only built a few weeks ago and Terry from Augusta’s worked on it. After 4:30 the sky opened up on us and we got drenched. Worst part is our boots got wet too. Then it rained again right before we got to the shelter so we came in wet and tired. Luckily this is (I think) the only shelter on the trail where you can order takeout food. So we did. Large cheese fries with bacon, large meat lovers pizza, and a slice of strawberry covered cheesecake from the Tuscan Grill. While we were waiting for it to arrive I took a shower (yes, this shelter has a propane heated shower attached to it!) it felt good to rinse the salt off and put on dry clothes. It was glorious and very filling. We even saved two slices of pizza for breakfast.
Inspirational quote of the day: “I’m going to punch every ant in the face tonight” – Nick

From Hazard’s notes:
Day 31: June 9, 2009
Travel:
From: Lost Mountain Shelter, VA
To: Wise Shelter, VA
Beginning: 8:40am
Ending: 6:00pm
Number of miles hiked:
a) Trail – 17.3
b) other -
c) AT Mile Marker – 496.1 cumulative
Weather:
AM: Stayed sunny and warm all day
PM: Got to Wise Shelter and a huge dark cloud rolled in and the wind picked up and it made a lot of noise but has yet to produce rain.
People: We were going to hike with Loyal today but…
Animals: Three rabbits crossed our path this morning, one so fat he dragged himself off the trail with little regard for us hikers. Of course the Grayson Highlands ponies! We took lots of pictures but forgot to pack in some snacks for them at the last resupply.
Money: $0, $641 cumulative
Notes of the day:
AM: Late morning rolling out of camp. Loyal said he would try to hike with us so we all left together. Spoon almost left his knife at the shelter for the second time but Loyal caught it with his eagle eye. He kept up with us all the way to the beginning of the climb up to Buzzard Rock. Once Spoon and I got to the top we waited, and waited, and waited, but there was no Loyal to be seen. Finally a lady who works for the forest service came up and we asked her if she had seen anyone with Loyal’s description and she said yes. Apparently, he was on the phone some distance down the trail. We even tried calling him to tell him to get off the phone and get up here, but Spoon got voicemail and instead of ending the call he handed the phone back to me and it went into my pocket where a two minute conversation got recorded to his voicemail instead. After about 45 minutes of waiting we decided to move on and hoped to see him when we stopped for lunch.

PM: Made our way through the Mt. Rogers area and up to Thomas Knob shelter. There we had lunch and met some Christian camp counselors on a four day trek. The two guys who had gotten to the top first were wearing street clothes and one had skater type shoes and the other was hiking in Teva sandals. The rest of their group was hopelessly unprepared for any kind of hike. Good luck to them. We stayed extra long waiting for Loyal and anyone coming up had not seen him. After an hour and a half lunch we had to continue. We made it over to the Massie Gap area and the weather was perfect. It was really rocky and slow moving but the views were amazing. Coming down to Wise Shelter it was already late and it is 6 miles to Old Orchard Shelter where we planned to be tonight, but too much waiting on Loyal put us far behind. Going to sleep early and waking up early to try and make up ground tomorrow. Oh, I forgot to mention the Grayson Highlands Ponies…
Main concerns of the day: We hope Loyal is still alive out there and we now have to crank out 30 miles to make Partnership Shelter tomorrow.

We just wanted to give a huge shout out to Hazard today since it’s his birthday!!

So, Happy Birthday, Fred!!

We love you!

Mom, Dad and Will