Mountains Under Foot

From Hazard’s notes:
Day 39: June 17, 2009
Travel:
From: Plaza Motel, Pearisburg, VA
To: Pine Swamp Branch Shelter, VA
Beginning: 11:00am
Ending: 7:00pm
Number of miles hiked:
a) Trail – 19.3
b) other – 1 mile to get back on trail from town
c) AT Mile Marker 646.2 cumulative
Weather:
AM: Cloudy and looking nasty. Rained while we climbed to the top of the ridge.
PM: Stayed dry most of the afternoon, but the wet grass soaked our boots.
People: Ted, a very talkative SOBO (a South Bounder, a person hiking the AT from north to south) section hiker with two dogs. Two other guys showed up at the shelter one knew us the other didn’t. Sorry, didn’t catch the names.
Animals: This bright orange-red salamander with bright orange spots in two lines down his back.
Money: $6 for breakfast, $758 cumulative
Notes of the day:
AM: Rolled out of bed around 9am and put the weather channel on; it looked like most of the rain was past us. Packed everything up and went down the street to Hardee’s for breakfast. It was scary how many elderly people were there, but then I found out they had coupons, so it made sense. Got back on the trail and wandered through some people’s backyards and ended up on a bridge over the New River. Giles County apparently boasts some large number of miles of the New River that passes through it. On our way up the mountain to the ridge, Spoon was complaining about his pack weight up the hill. It got so bad that he said his legs were going to give out, so he dropped his pack and pulled out a container of Nutella he has pulled from the hiker box at the motel and his candy bars. He had bought so many bars he was overloaded. I ate one of his Butterfingers and he had a Watchamacallit. Four Snickers joined the Nutella on the side of the trail. For shame. Although he said he felt better, weight wise, after the dump.

PM: Hike, hike, hike, all the way to camp. The shelter was the same style as Trimpi Shelter which meant it had a fireplace in the center of the back wall flanked by lofted sleeping area. Naturally Spoon and I built a fire after dinner with moist wood to keep the bugs down and to enjoy its warm glow. Went to sleep soundly that night. Ted was talking so much it took me forever to write my journal and I was already behind one day.

Quote of the day: “Ya’ll going to have to use small words, you’re in a small town.” – Hardee’s employee

From Hazard’s notes:
Day 38: June 16, 2009
Travel:
From: Woods Hole Hostel, VA
To: Plaza Motel, Pearisburg, VA
Beginning: 12:45pm
Ending: 5:00pm-ish
Number of miles hiked:
a) Trail – 10.4
b) other – 1-2 miles wandering around town
c) AT Mile Marker – 625.9 cumulative
Weather:
AM: Poured rain all morning.
PM: Rain stopped soon after we started hiking, but we were walking in a cloud all afternoon. Rained on us a few times too.
People: Said goodbye to Neville & Michael, a couple people that gave us rides, and we ran into Patch at the Wal-mart.
Animals:
Money: $7.50 for breakfast + $7.50 donation (work-stay rules), $8 for dinner, $8 for birthday treats. $752 cumulative.
Notes of the day:
AM: Another great breakfast spread by Neville and Michael of eggs, sausage, biscuits & gravy, grits, and another platter of blueberry pancakes (requested by Checkpoint & Coldfeet). We ate it all! I ended up doing most of the dishes, while Spoon dried. The rain was still coming down hard so Spoon and I tried to wait it out. Spoon took a nap and I packed up my stuff. I showed Michael some things about Bluehost and some plugins on our website. Neville had here wedding invitations spread out across the dinning table and had One-step and Checkpoint handwriting the address on the return envelopes. These guys had surprisingly beautiful handwriting and were easily coerced into doing work.

PM: Rain was still coming down after noon, so we decided we were going to have to hike in the rain at least to Pearisburg. We said goodbye to everyone and saddled up. By the time we got a quarter mile up the road, the rain had stopped. Good timing. We ended up having a good hour and a half without rain but the inevitable happened – it rained and it rained a lot. Tapered off by the time we got to town (the trail came down through some people’s backyards) and then when we were standing around at the Rendezvous Motel it came pouring down again. We asked them how the motels were further in town and where town was and got referred to the Plaza Motel. So we got back out on the street and headed into town. Thankfully a nice lady and her son gave us a ride up to the motel. Spoon payed for the room as a birthday gift and we immediately got showers and handed our nasty clothes to the lady we booked the room from. I borrowed some clothes from the hiker box and looked ridiculous for awhile, but I needed both sets of clothes washed. We set out for Wal-mart to get bug spray and a notebook for Spoon. A couple miles down the road and Spoon stopped because his leg was stiffening and didn’t want to walk any farther so we stuck our thumbs out and got a guy to stop. I told him we were trying to get to Wal-mart and he laughed and said it’s about 20 miles up this road. We were both confused and told him we thought there was one in town and he said it was a couple miles the other direction. I guess we looked pretty bummed because he said he’d take us there anyway. Once we arrived we thanked him and we wandered inside. It wouldn’t be exaggerating when I say we were a little overwhelmed by the massiveness of this place (it was one of those “supercenters”). Once we asked enough people and found what we needed, we ended up in the food section and saw they had a lot of hiker food in good variety and it was cheap. We decided to get our resupply stuff here instead of the Food Lion across from our motel. But not before we had some dinner. Spoon dropped our stuff off on a shelf to come back for later and we headed out. On our way out we ran into none other than Patch! He had been stuck in town for the past couple days because he had to order new boots. They were supposed to be sent overnight to town. We invited him back to the motel for dessert stuffs later if he could get a ride and then headed across the street to Wendy’s for some chow. We came back and got everything we needed from Wal-mart and then were stuck because we were at least two or three miles from the motel and had no idea how to get back. We asked a few people if they were headed that direction and then caught a group of ladies who were and convinced them to take us. The looks on their faces were priceless as they looked at each other trying to decide whether or not to take us. We got back to the motel and immediately left for the Food Lion across the street to pick up a German Chocolate cake, ice cream, and milk. In addition to the Oreoes we picked up earlier we had a massive feast in front of the TV. After the Daily Show and Colbert we passed out in our soft beds and clean sheets.