{"id":686,"date":"2014-06-15T16:32:30","date_gmt":"2014-06-15T20:32:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hnatow.com\/wordpress-happytrails\/?p=686"},"modified":"2014-06-15T16:32:30","modified_gmt":"2014-06-15T20:32:30","slug":"day-60-blackrock-to-near-skyline-drive-mile-66-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/hnatow.com\/happytrails\/?p=686","title":{"rendered":"Day 60 – Blackrock to near Skyline Drive mile 66.7"},"content":{"rendered":"

We made it through the night and day without any bears. We had a nice camp spot near the summit of Blackrock. I scrambled up to the top before we left camp since I didn’t get a chance to last night with the lightning. <\/p>\n

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View from summit of Blackrock scramble<\/p><\/div>\n

We kept on trucking through the park the rest of the day. There were a lot of volunteers out today from the Potomac Trail Club doing maintenance. Many thanks to these awesome people. It was literally the first time I have seen the trail being mowed with a push mower, so that was amusing.
\nAlmost every couple of miles we crisscross Skyline Drive. This gets us relatively close to the Waysides in the park, which are like a rest stop, diner, and souvenir stand built into one fortress of awesome. <\/p>\n

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Loft Mountain Wayside. We walked an extra mile to get to this one. <\/p><\/div>\n

We took advantage of this by having some delicious fried food for lunch instead of our normal boring pepperoni or peanut butter gruel. So good. There are 2 more left that we get close to so it will be hard to pass them up. <\/p>\n

The rest of the day we pushed on through some small climbs and mostly smooth and easy trails. The park is cool but surprisingly a little bit less scenic than central Virginia and certainly less so than I expected considering it’s a national park. Perhaps it will get scenicier (not a real word for sure) further north. <\/p>\n

There are not a lot of thru-hikers here in the park it seems. For the first time in the whole trip we are starting to be a novelty to people that realize that we are thru-hiking and that we are insane enough to have hiked to that point from freaking Georgia. Section hikers today were asking us for advice on hiking, so that was cool and a bit weird. <\/p>\n

Tomorrow it’s more of the park and another Wayside in the afternoon (score!!!). We had awesome weather today and tomorrow looks similar. <\/p>\n

Vital stats :<\/strong>
\nMilestone – over 900 miles from freaking Georgia!
\nMiles hiked today – 23.3 (technically 24.3 because of the Wayside but I don’t count that)
\nMood – good
\nPhysical state – normal
\nSmell – like when a bag of potatoes has gone way past its prime
\nSong stuck in my head – Surrender by Hardly The Hero<\/p>\n

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