We survived the night without any bear visits that we were aware of at least. We got some more heavy thunderstorms and rain overnight, which seems to be a trend now. The hike down to Waynesboro this morning was hot and humid, but otherwise pretty smooth, quick, and uneventful. Continue reading
Usually I write these from inside the tarp, but tonight I’m sitting out on a rock cliff watching the sunset here. It’s fantastic and makes a tough and sweaty day like today totally worth it.
View from Humpback Mountain that I'm looking at as I write this blog post
We got a late start today because the first shuttle back to the trail (which is about 9 miles or so from town) ran at 10:30am. This gave us a leisurely start to the day. Blue Dog includes a breakfast sandwich and coffee with the price of staying in the hostel. The grub was quite excellent. We were bummed we didn’t get to try this place for dinner as they are closed on Sundays.
Blue Dog
The owner and her husband are hunters. Also, the scrawls on the wall are thru-hiker signatures (they encourage this behavior)
We shuttled back to the trail with fellow thru-hikers JRex, Daddy Long Legs, and Baby Steps, all who are very cool and nice. Hopefully we see them up the trail somewhere. Continue reading
We woke up and hit the trail by about 7:15am. Most of the trail we covered today was pretty standard, winding through national forest areas, over small streams and creeks, and near interesting stuff. In this case we walked past the Brown Mountain Creek Community area (where some former slaves lived post-Civil war) and the Lynchburg reservoir. We got to US 60 around 11:30, where we got a shuttle to Buena Vista (after some minor shuttle shenanigans). We are staying at the Blue Dog Art Cafe, which has a small hostel in an upstairs apartment. It’s decent for a hostel. Continue reading
We had another day of some fairly large climbs. Today the weather was definitely sweatier than it’s been of late, so that made it a bit tougher. The first climb was up Highcock Knob in the morning. That one wasn’t too bad. Then we descended down to the James River. We crossed it on the longest foot bridge on the AT, roughly a 1/4 mile long.
Crossing the river. Food awaited.
Looking at the James River
Some hikers jump in, but it looked a bit sketchy and dirty so we didn’t. Also, the YWAM group was having a hiker feed in the parking lot on the other side, so screw swimming in a dirty river when delicious hot dogs and hamburgers await. We had heard about this feed for the last couple days, so we were excited for it. We were not disappointed, as we rocked numerous dogs, burgers, sodas, and watermelon slices. Good stuff. Pretty cool of them to offer up food for all the thru-hikers in the neighborhood. Continue reading
We started off the morning with a descent down Cove Mountain with some cool views of the morning fog and clouds down in the valleys.
Views off Cove Mountain
We dined on the exquisite HoJo breakfast buffet and then hit the trail around 8:15am. The trail was mostly smooth and easy today. It began to run mostly parallel with the occasional intersection with the Blue Ridge Parkway. I think it stays near the Parkway for about the next 100 miles or so. We saw a bunch of the nice views that the Parkway has to offer of the Virginia valleys and mountains.
Blue Ridge Parkway
More BRP
We saw a number of black snakes, ticks, and a turtle. All of these are pretty much daily occurrences now (ugh ticks everywhere now). It was a really enjoyable day of hiking with perfect partly sunny and breezy weather all day. Tomorrow we have a few challenging climbs on the agenda. Continue reading
Today was a nice leisurely zero day. We enjoyed some iced coffees, Mexican food, and some Busch pounders and Miller Lites by the HoJo pool with Oregon, Lil Bit, and some other thru-hikers. The pool was a little chilly but Oregon and I jumped in. Otherwise not much else to report from today. We thankfully avoided a few large thunderstorms by taking the zero today. Continue reading
We hit the trail around 8am today for a half day of hiking into Daleville. The trail was mostly easy hiking with a few rocky ridges to traverse. There were a couple powerline views of nearby Carvin’s Cove Reservoir.
Agua
More agua
Wow, today was basically the epitome of great scenery on the AT. Continue reading