{"id":652,"date":"2014-06-10T08:50:59","date_gmt":"2014-06-10T12:50:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hnatow.com\/wordpress-happytrails\/?p=652"},"modified":"2014-06-10T08:50:59","modified_gmt":"2014-06-10T12:50:59","slug":"day-55-buena-vista-va-to-near-cash-hollow-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/hnatow.com\/happytrails\/?p=652","title":{"rendered":"Day 55 – Buena Vista, VA to near Cash Hollow Road"},"content":{"rendered":"

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. <\/p>\n

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Blue Dog<\/p><\/div>\n

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The owner and her husband are hunters. Also, the scrawls on the wall are thru-hiker signatures (they encourage this behavior)<\/p><\/div>\n

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.
\nOnce we got started around 11, we had about a 3 mile climb up to Bald Knob to start things off. It wasn’t all that bad and the temperature really was pretty comfortable under the tree canopy today. Cold Mountain was shortly after and had some nice views. <\/p>\n

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Cold Mountain (it wasn't cold today)<\/p><\/div>\n

Most of the hike after that was pretty easy going relatively speaking. There weren’t any other major climbs as we stayed up on the ridge between about 3200-4000 feet of elevation. <\/p>\n

We did a cool little rock scramble 1\/10 of a mile off the trail on Spy Rock. It was a fun scramble and had some great panoramic views of this area. <\/p>\n

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Blue Ridges from Spy Rock<\/p><\/div>\n

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Panoramic from Spy Rock<\/p><\/div>\n

We pushed a little later than normal due to the late start and found a nice flat spot past Cash Hollow Road (which doesn’t appear to be a real road and I can’t seem to locate any cash around this hollow).<\/p>\n

Tomorrow we have a short climb and then a monster descent down The Priest (easily one of my favorite mountain names so far) and then a big climb up Three Ridges Mountain. These are our last big (multi-mile multi-thousand foot) climbs until New England, which is pretty mind blowing. I’m going to miss these big southern beasts…sometimes. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

Vital stats :<\/strong>
\nMiles hiked today – 19
\nMood – good
\nPhysical state – good – feet are loving the fresh sneaks (thanks Packy&Tapey!)
\nSmell – surprisingly there is still a hint of dryer sheet because Blue Dog did our laundry and used a massive amount of dryer sheets. It’s magical.
\nSong stuck in my head – La Cienega Just Smiled by Ryan Adams<\/p>\n

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