Update-a-thon 2010

Holy crap. It's been hectic on the trail - too hectic for appropriate updateage of this blog, which I've been working on for almost year.

So I did a mad dash after my parents' visit [hikers were still talking about getting trail magic PBRs from my folks for days] from the Grayson Highlands/Mt. Rogers area to make up some distance before taking time off for Trail Days.

Now I'm back from Trail Days and taking a zero at a Daleville hotel before resuming my hike tomorrow from Va. Rte. 624, 693.4 miles from Springer Mountain. I desperately needed a day to decompress - my last zero before Trail Days was Damascus on April 28.

Stay tuned...

Trail Days bound

It's almost midnight, I'm stealth-camping in the woods next to a Virginia highway and I have no idea how hitching to Trail Days tomorrow is going to work. I'm nearly to Catawba, at almost 700 miles from Springer, while Damascus, where Trail Days is going on right now,  is just past mile 500.

Incidentally Damascus was the last time I took a zero. Or a nero. I feel a strong desire for a town day. I especially want computer time so I can write about and upload pictures from the last 150 miles.

The past three days were particularly hard. I ran out of fuel before Pearisburg [an O-ring in my stove is shot,  causing leakage when attaching the stove to a fuel canister]. Pearisburg had no isopro canisters. I bought a Sterno can, basically a can of burning jelly which you see under the food at wedding buffets.

Long story short, I've been living on snacks for two days while hiking more than 20 miles a day. It's time for town.
I and another hiker, a guy from Montana by the name of Longshanks, will both be holding signs by a nearby gas station. "AT hiker to Damascus," or some variation of that. Strangely, it seems that most hikers around me are opting not to go to Trail Days.

Cloudwatching

I'm doing another day of heatwave hiking in southwest Virginia. At the moment I'm finishing lunch at Chestnut Knob Shelter, elev. 4,409 ft. Onto Woodshole Hostel and Pearisburg over the next couple of days.

My 14th state

This is it. For me, Virginia is the 14th of 14 states that the Appalachian Trail goes through that I've hiked. There's still the matter of doing the 4 or so miles from the end of Virginia to Harper's Ferry.

But stick a fork in Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee -- they're done!

Parents visit III, back to the ponylands

Sunday morning we had the usual for our continental breakfast: OJ, coffee, waffle, donuts, fruit cup, and then headed back to the trail, passing by a dozen little rural churches with filled up parking lots.

All three of us trudged up the service road to return to the Appalachian Trail at Massie Gap. We found the ponies immediately.

[My stepdad and rockstar pony, Grayson Highlands, May 2.]

[This baby pony was sleeping and couldn't be bothered.]

It was another 10-mile day for Mom and I in the highlands, making it a 20-mile section for her. That's no small feat for someone without much distance-hiking background. Although she did admit that hiking was more demanding than she'd expected.

At the end we started noticing messages written in the mud. One included my stepdad's initials: Had he hiked in and scratched them into the trail? One further down said "7 min 2 go". The message proved accurate, and indeed it was he who had left them. That night it was Chinese buffett for dinner and another night sleeping like a rock.

The day also saw me pass the 500-miles-from-Springer point. That means I'm 1/2-way done with the souther half of the AT, and 3/4 of the way done with my AT hike!

Onto middle Virginia, then Trail Days.

Parents' visit II, Virginia highlands

My parents got a good look at life on the Appalachian Trail while they were here.

On Saturday morning we went to Ingles and got some snacks for a day's hike and some materials for trail magic. My mom tried her first Red Bull.

Mom and I hiked the breezy 2.5-mile stretch from the road where we met the night before down to Va. Rte. 600, where we met back up with my stepdad for a picnic lunch in the sun. He'd been handing out PBRs and Cokes to grateful thru-hikers.

Mom and I hiked to the Thomas Knob Shelter, standing at 5,400 feet elev. near Mt. Rogers, where we met hikers of all stripes: Weekenders, a ridgerunner, some thru hikers and a troop of boisterous Boy Scouts. On thru hiker, Merf, was adding a wild ramp to her noodles for dinner. Behind the shelter, the scout masters converged on the water source and pumped their filters like a tiny orchestra while their charges mingled with a small group of wild ponies.

The highlands are renowned for their wild ponies, introduced decades ago to naturally maintain the open fields on the highlands.

Then it started raining. The first drops out of the sky slammed the metal roof of the shelter. It tapered off almost immediately, giving us a window to hike on.

Soon we ran into those ponies again. Some were munching the grass. Others zoned out and stood in the rain like statues. We took our cameras out when the rain weakened further.

[Friendly ponies, Mom, May 1, Virginia highlands.]

A pair of ponies approached us and got all up in my grill.

We ended our day at Massie Gap under a gray, overcast sky, which gave the highlands a wild British isles aspect. My stepdad was very patiently awaiting us. Then, instead of turning left at US 58, we turned right, leading us to take a healthy 2-hr drive among the hollers of southwest Virginia, even through the streets of Damascus, on our way back to Marion. We had a late dinner in Marion.

Parents' visit

[Mom and me, relaxing after Mom's second consecutive 10-mile day on the trail, Va. Rte. 603, May 2]

Hotel by night, trail by day. That's been my life for the past three days as my parents have been visiting me here in southwest Virginia.

On Friday I was planning on using my phone to help coordinate the meetup with my parents, who were driving from Ohio. The phone didn't register any signal until I began ascending Whitetop Mountain [around 16 miles into my hike]. At the top of the mountain I was passing by three hikers sprawled out next to a spring at 5,100 feet elev. "You're not Ink, are you?" a dude asked. I plucked my earphone out and answered. He told me my parents had just come by and had been waiting at the next road not five minutes ago.

At the road there was no sign of them. But finally my call got through and my stepdad turned the car around and sped back up the hill.

I was relieved. Our original meeting point was another 45 minutes of hiking north and it was getting late. I was tiring fast. They had been driving all over creation in this land of no cell service and unpaved roads hoping to find me, asking strangers for direction.

We all hugged and sat down to enjoy Mom's AT cookies and Dr. Pepper. We gave some trail maj to a hiker I know named Greendog, who came over looking for a place to set up camp. Soon we got back in the car and checked into a Comfort Inn in Atkins and had dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Marion, just off Interstate 81.

I took a shower, turned on the tube, called my girlfriend and slept like a rock.