Mountains Under Foot

From Hazard’s notes:
Day 49: June 27, 2009
Travel:
From: Dripping Rock parking overlook, VA (Rusty’s Hard Time Hollow)
To: Waynesboro, VA
Beginning: 10:00am
Ending: 3:00pm
Number of miles hiked:
a) Trail – 14.3
b) other
c) AT Mile Marker – 852.5 cumulative
Weather:
Am & Pm: Awesome! The dry streak continues.
People: Iceman and Cattywampus.
Animals: Townfolk…?
Money: $11 for dinner, $810 cumulative.
Notes of the day:
AM: Woke up at Rusty’s earlier than usual probably from the roosters. Had breakfast and Rusty gave us a ride back to where we left off yesterday. Iceman and Cattywampus had left to try and hitch a ride much earlier. We moved down the trail pretty fast and took a video on some rocks overlooking Wintergreen ski resort. Got to Paul Wolfe Shelter around 1pm and Iceman & Catty were there taking a break. I had some tuna and Spoon went without. Got back to work 30 minutes later and punched out 5 miles by 3pm. Not too bad. We were at Rockfish Gap, which is mile marker 0 on the BRP, taking pictures and a van pulls up and they where trail angels shuttling people into town. The easiest hitch we’ve ever had, didn’t even have to stick our thumbs out.

PM: They gave us the tour of Waynesboro and dropped us off at the YMCA suggesting we needed to take advantage of the free showers before we went anywhere. Got showers and then headed to the library next door to get some things uploaded and check emails. Iceman came rolling in 30 minutes later and sat down at a computer. Catty was off meeting up with her parents and he was planning on staying at the church hostel with us. At 5pm the computers kicked us off and we shuffled out of the library. While Spoon and I were walking to the church we saw Iceman hurrying over waving his hands. We thought “Oh no, the hostel is full or something” but he came over and said, “What is the greatest trail magic you’ve ever gotten?” We both kinda looked at each other confused and then he told us Catty’s parents wanted to get us a hotel room. They brought an ice cream maker and wanted to meet some of the hikers. So we rode out to the edge of town to the Marriot Residence Inn and got hooked up with some posh digs. After dropping our stuff and taking advantage of the flat screen TV we got a ride out to a Chinese buffet while Catty and the parents went to Outback Steak House. We stuffed ourselves silly with as much food as we could and then lounged around to digest and wait for our the others to finish and come back for us. Once our ride returned, we resupplied and came back to the hotel. There was more TV, repackaging of food, Catty’s parents had brought her MacBook so there was Internet access. We were in Heaven. But wait, there’s more, after re-showering (because the YMCA just didn’t de-grease our hair) we got called to the other room for homemade ice cream and poundcake. Yum! Good conversations, good times. The rest of the night was me updating blog stuff, uploading more pictures, chatted with Kim (Setting up some Massachusetts trail magic) and my mom, splitting one of our videos to fit on YouTube, and catching up on Cat’s blog. That took a little more time than I anticipated. Going to bed late…

From Hazard’s notes:
Day 48: June 26, 2009
Travel:
From: Seeley-Woodworth Shelter, VA
To: BRP mp 9.6; Dripping Rock Parking Overlook. Then to Rusty’s Hard Time Hollow.
Beginning: 8:00am
Ended: 7:20pm
Number of miles hiked:
a) Trail – 27.1
b) other -
c) AT Mile Marker – 838.2 cumulative
Weather:
AM: Overcast sky for the morning, sun peeked through.
PM: Had some dark clouds come in, but they were short lived. A few drops of rain but it didn’t even break through the canopy. By my vote it doesn’t count and we are still on the rain-free streak.
People: Rusty (Owns the hostel), Iceman and Cattywampus. Wheels came in late and I had referred to him as Chef before but that was actually the Canadian girl he was hiking with when we first met him.
Animals: Same old
Money: $0, $799 cumulative.
Notes of the day:
AM: Morning was an easy 7 miles from our shelter to the next which was Priest Shelter. So easy, in fact, that Spoon exceeded 3mph and I got there right at 10:20am. Not a bad start on the day. Once up on top of the Priest there really wasn’t much to see, so we began our 3000 vertical foot decent to the Tye River. It was about lunchtime and there were some cool rocks to sit on and watch the river from beside the suspension bridge so we decided to have lunch.

PM: There were some locals picnicking below us and a couple of little girls swimming in the river. I was dreading the next section of trail as we had to climb back up those 3000 feet up to three ridges. And it was soooo hot! If you ever want me to soak my clothes to the point where you can see my boxers through my shorts, throw me in a pool or ask me to hike up three ridges. The rest of the day wasn’t too bad. Came down about a thousand feet and then followed along the Blue Ridge Parkway for the rest of the day. Had a short spat of rain that wasn’t enough to moisten the ground, but it rained further up the trail more, so the rocks were nice and slippery when we got there. By the time we got to Cedar Cliffs it was getting late and we were spent. The original plan was to stay at the shelter 7 miles back but we decided to push to make the walk into Waynesboro shorter. Ended up being the best decision we could have made. While sitting at the cliffs a couple came strolling down the trail and clearly the guy was taking his girlfriend down to the cliffs for an evening picnic with wine and a sunset. Well played, sir. I will have to use that move one day. Anyhow, it was a 10 minute hike up to the parking area where we met Iceman standing on the side of the BRP. He told us about Rusty’s and it sounded a lot better than sleeping next to the bug infested water source. Cattywampus was already getting a ride from a teenager in a convertible, that called Iceman “sir”, because he could only fit one at a time. We decided if we could find a ride we’d go to the hostel. Got a ride from a friendly crew that thought our car had broken down. We should stand beside other people’s cars more often. Rusty’s was a cool place, for more info, check out the Video Blog 08.