Update for Sunday, May 30: Waynesboro

So I'm in Waynesboro, Va. staying at Grace Lutheran Church.

The church has us in the basement on cots. They have two computers and a big screen tv for us in the lounge, hot showers and other amenities.

I hear there are like three snorers in the common room tonight. So I'm either going to couch it in here or use the earplugs that Cheeseburger gave me.

I got in today at noon, headed straight for Ming Garden and then straight to Tailgate, a bar and grill, to watch USA take on Turkey in soccer. I bought a used Jack London book - "John Barleycorn" - and resupplied at Kroger. It's a great town; I wish I had time to zero here.

But I must hike on. I'm at mile 853 from Springer. Which means I'm roughly 150 miles from Harper's Ferry. Which is so, so hard to believe, that I've hiked from there to Katahdin and then from Georgia to there, and it's all coming to an end so soon - in the next week and a half. Ten days!!! Tomorrow, I begin the 100-mile Shenandoah National Park portion of the AT, renowned for its forgiving terrain and wayside lunch counters. After the Shenandoahs I'm practically there.

I'm having a lot of mixed feelings being this close to the end of my 2,179 miles of hiking the Appalachian Trail. As I wrote in the register of the Priest Mountain Shelter, this trip took on more importance than I ever thought it would when I was planning it. Now I can hardly imagine my life without the Trail.

It's late. I'm off to bed, dreaming of AYCE blueberry pancakes.

Crossing the James River, Bluff Mountain

May 24, morning, Thunder Hill Shelter. It was raining hard outside the shelter, and had been during the night, too. Nobody wanted to go out in it. It was me, an older guy from Kentucky named Kentucky, an older guy from Germany named Eddy and a girl named Cowgirl and her dog. I felt sticky all over from sweat that hadn't dried off of me.

Of course, I hiked, as one does out here on the Trail. I've never yet zeroed at a shelter [though I neroed way back in lower NC].

I don't remember much of the day other than that I had NPR on the radio for a bit and told Cowgirl the good news, but she didn't know what NPR was. I definitely ate a lot of snack food for lunch at a crossing with a forest service road.

The James River, at 775 miles from Springer, has to be a highlight. Like the Susquehanna, the Hudson, the Kennebec, the Housatonic, the Nantahala and the Tye, one remembers the James, because rivers always stand out.

[The AT crosses the James River on a footbridge. May 24.]

You're supposed to jump off the bridge at a certain point and swim. But I was alone and why bother? After the bridge I hit Johns Hollow Shelter at about 5 p.m. Tents were up, a fire was going and people were hanging out for the night. I cooked mac and cheese. All the while I was debating, do I hike, do I stay? In the end, I hiked. It's hard for me to waste daylight when I'm full of energy.

So up the hill I went. Across Little and Big Rocky Row and Saddle Gap I was treated to beautiful evening ridge walking, with amazing vistas. A grouse fluttered across the trail and I wondered if I'd see more wildlife.

[Three ridges tapering from Apple Orchard Mountain into the James River, May 24.]

At 9 p.m. I hiked to the summit of Bluff Mountain, about which my companion book has this to say:

"Site of a monument to four-year-old Ottie Cline Powell. In the fall of 1890, Ottie went into the woods to gather firewood for his schoolhouse and never returned. His body was found five months later on top of this mountain..."

I shone my headlamp on the memorial marking the exact spot where they found his body. People had left stones stacked on the monument, which is pretty common for monuments along the Trail. I scanned around for a stone to place there but couldn't easily find one and moved out of the woods to the summit. The remnants of a firetower remained [Earl Shaffer camped there in 1948, I would later read]. I left my girlfriend a message as a fog bank rolled up and obscured the faraway lights of some town in the valley.

The moon was full. "OK, I've had enough of this," I thought, and hurried off to hike down the hill. I got a chill down my neck walking the switchbacks, broke into an all-out run. Sweat pouring off me, I realized how terrible it might be if I rounded a dark corner and literally ran into an unsuspecting bear, so I started chanting like a crazed Marine - "Hoo-Hah!"

I ended my night at Punchbowl Shelter, where I set up my tent. At about 11 p.m. I was startled by a limb crashing to the ground in the woods behind me [I was the furthest tent away from the shelter]. Not taking any chances on it being a coincidence, I went out in my boxer shorts to hang a bear bag. It was the end of a 25-mile day.

Hiking as a couple!

From Lamberts Meadow I hiked 10 miles north, went back to the Howard Johnson and promptly checked into room 301. I did some eating at Pizza Hut, did some blogging in the hotel lobby and waited for my girlfriend, Ashley, who was driving down from Pennsylvania to do a section with me.

We'd been planning this for months. In fact, we took our first trip to REI together in the winter to get her a pack to begin the gearing up process. And she'd been following up ever since.

She got there that night. The next day we resupplied at Kroger and went back to the room to get the "hurricane" of food and equipment funneled into our packs. We were off to do some hiking.

Hiking with a partner is something I find I increasingly enjoy. We sang duets, and Ashley, a music teacher and former pop singer in her high school days, taught me about harmonies. She had me hum a 'C' note, and then she added her own voice in harmony. "Hear how it's pretty?" she asked, leading the way up the trail.

[Ashley dismounting a stile, just north of Daleville, May 20.]

[Cow! May 20.]

We played "Six Degrees," which I rocked at. We watched a train go by. We finished our first day as a trail couple at Wilson Creek Shelter, an 11-mile day, and set up the tent. Having Ashley in the tent made me sleep all the more soundly.

In the morning, we took it slow. I gots to have my coffee.

This part of the trail wound back and forth across the Blue Ridge Parkway in places where we could peer over the edge of the ridge on both sides and see into West Virginia, where the Allegheny range paralleled us, or onto the Peaks of Otter, a resort-encrusted mountain jutting to the east.

[I discovered a curious artifact on the trail very close to the Blue Ridge Parkway.]

After a long day [14 miles] we tented again at Cove Mountain Shelter. Ashley was out of it until we had dinner.

On our third day together we took it real easy. We hiked to Jennings Creek, walked a bit up the road and hitched a ride in the back of a pickup truck to Middle Creek Campground and went to the country store for some hot food and cold, carbonated drinks. We played air hockey in the store's "arcade" and then shot hoops at the basketball court. By court, I mean a 20 ft by 20 ft paved square with a hoop. As a bonus, the register was one of the rare ones to contain entries from the class of 2009. It was nice to read that people I've hiked with had a good time there a year earlier.

Afterward we hiked the mile or so back to the trail and started climbing. The sky opened up and dumped a torrent of fresh rain on us. It seemed like minutes later the storm was done and we were nearing Bryant Ridge Shelter, our intended destination.

"Getting in at 4:30, just like the old men do it," I said. The deluxe two-story shelter loomed above the creek and trail. And as a matter of fact four old men already occupied it.

There was so much room that I pitched my tent, without the rain fly, on the top level. Two young hikers, T-Funk and Rock and Roll, showed up later and set up across the room on the same floor. As we bedded down, a long, drawn-out fart ripped through the country for old men down below. It was material for comedy among us younger ones in the morning. Ashley suggested, in the register, a fireman's pole or a slide into a ball pit for getting down from the top level of the shelter.

The next day Ashley got to climb all morning as we made our way up to Floyd Mountain. It was 1,000 feet up in the damp hot air. And we had to hurry, because we had to meet a shuttle back to Daleville at noon where the Blue Ridge Parkway connects with a short side trail from Cornelius Creek Shelter. I ran the last half of a mile or so and bade the shuttle man wait, and soon we were headed south on the parkway. We spotted a wild turkey - the only one I've seen so far - on the side of the road.

We took strong advantage of Ashley's car and drove south from Daleville 20 minutes to Catawba, home of the legendary Homeplace restaurant. The restaurant is open only Thursday through Sunday - I'd missed it because of Trail Days. We put our names on the list and waited while a man with a Virginia drawl called out parties on the outdoor loudspeakers. Lots of people wore church clothes, it being Sunday. The restaurant's simplicity is its strong suit. It's AYCE, and the menu consists of fried chicken, country ham, roast beef and a smattering of fixins, including biscuits and some insanely good apple butter.

I felt rejuvenated by food.

[Me and Ashley at the Homeplace, Catawba, Va. The shot was at the end of a series on self timer, hence the pose. May 23.]

After resupplying at the Daleville Kroger again, Ashley drove me to the side trail to Cornelius Creek Shelter, where we parted.

I thought about stopping for the night, but changed my mind and summited Apple Orchard Mountain [elev. 4,225 ft] on my way to Thunder Hill Shelter, arriving just after 8 p.m.

After Trail Days: Daleville zero, trail maj and McAffee Knob

I had a Trail Days hangover.

Instead of resuming my hike immediately after Trail Days at mile 693 from Springer, I got a ride from Zipper [AT '09] 20+ further up to Daleville, where the AT encounters a bustling Interstate junction. I split a room at the Howard Johnson, next to the trail, with a hiker named Shorts. Sipping beer and watching tv in the A/C after two days of sipping beer in Tent City and Damascus relaxed me miraculously. And then I zeroed the next day because I really needed to catch up on this blog. It was raining buckets all day anyway.

But I was in the process of laying my clothes out to dry on the sidewalk outside my room when I glanced into the adjacent room and saw some dude. "Wait a sec," I thought, recognizing the Fila hat that Tintin had bought in Abingdon before a group of us went to the movies. It was Tintin, Fredo and Tornado, slowly getting ready to hike out. They'd abstained from Trail Days in vain, it appeared.

On the day I was due to hike I was buying coffee and a Danish at the coffee shop next to the outfitter in Daleville, in the plaza down the road from the HoJo.

"Excuse me," a young man who looked likely to be a Virginia Tech student [Blacksburg is very close] said. "Can I pay for you, sir?"

I was momentarily speechless. The barista meanwhile swiped my card. "Can you cancel that?" he said. We shook hands, exchanged names. He asked how the Trail was. I left feeling blessed.

I got a ride back down to where I was on the trail from Creepy, who was returning a rental car to Pearisburg.

It was May 18, a rainy day on which to hit McAffee Knob, one of the most iconic landmarks on the AT. Hikers put almost as much effort into McAffee Knob photos as Katahdin ones.

Being on my own again, I set my camera to timer and hurried over there. Here's what I came up with:

[Me at McAffee Knob, May 18.]

I hiked on to Tinker Cliffs, another renowned overlook, and experienced another fogbank fail. I sang loud as I finished my 16 mile day into Lamberts Meadow Shelter, where I stayed with three people - a woman from Israel named "Kutsa" and two older section hikers - I didn't know. Someone had left cans of soda in the creek for trail magic.

To Harper's Ferry: 198 miles

Argh. Can't upload photos. I'm at Dutch Haus B&B in Montebello, Va. American Idol is on so I'm on the computer.

I can't believe that my GA->WV '10 is now about two weeks from being over. I have fewer than 200 miles of hiking, or less than 10 percent of the Trail, between me and my finish point at Harper's Ferry.

Two weeks! 2,179 miles will be behind me!

I'm already thinking about the sections I'll be coming back for.

Trail Days!

Remember how skeptical I was about hitching to Trail Days from central Virginia?

I'm a worrywort.

I hung around the gas station/deli at trail mile 693.4, just six miles short of Catawba, and had a nice breakfast of ham biscuit. I asked the ladies at the counter for a piece of cardboard and a marker so I could make a hitchin' sign. "Trail Days bound!!!" it said enthusiastically. Then I waited a bit and Long Shanks, Inferno, Cookie and Tic Toc and Lola and Sunrise showed up. Long Shanks made himself a sign and we moved to the road, a moderately busy highway [Va. Rte. 311] and stuck out our thumbs while the rest of the gang watched with interest from a picnic table behind the gas station.

Twenty minutes later we were in the back of a pickup truck headed to the intersection of 311 and Interstate 81 - that crucial road that would take us all the way down to Damascus, which was all the way down at about mile 500 [edit: mile 460] from Springer.

Once at the intersection, we decided we'd probably have the best luck if we set up with our signs and packs right where the on-ramp enters the interstate. I jammed my poles into the dirt and was lifting my sign when a car pulled over and picked us up. It was a young couple, hikers, heading the whole way from western Maryland of all places. Clutch ride! I couldn't believe our luck. To boot they had a great music selection to jam to.

As soon as we got to town we [Long Shanks and I] headed straight into one of my favorite town spots in the South: Quincey's Pizza. Huge beers, hot food, good times.

Tent City: A bulldozed wasteland at the end of Shady Lane, on the edge of town [the town is making some ball fields], ringed by a woods. At first glance, nothing was visible but a few people picking their way through the dirt and uprooted roots to get to the road into the town. At a closer look, dozens, maybe hundreds, of tents occupied the flat spaces between the trees and people were hanging out. Near the gathering of the Class of '09 was a group playing Dizzy Bat, a drinking game involving placing one's forehead on a bat handle and spinning around. There was "Alcatraz," a camp in a little island in the creek running through the woods; "Camp Riff Raff," a place for heathens, "Billville," etc. etc.

Some people from last year made it; many didn't. It was strange coming from where I came from, stealthing in the woods, two months in the woods, and seeing the people I'd met and known last summer - in the woods - who'd left their trail names behind and now wore them awkwardly after all that time down from Katahdin.

The Class of '09 held a reunion at 9 p.m. at Dot's Inn, a rustic, homely bar specializing in piss beer. It was good times. The buzz never left. Almost everyone has remained connected, even if only through Facebook. There was catching up to do and people to meet again or for the first time, in the case of people I'd met, say, for one day in Monson, or for people who'd been around but never at the same place as me. It was clear to me that people overall missed the Trail and looked back on it with fondness.

On Saturday I did town stuff until the parade.

I had no preconceptions about the parade. I figured it would be just a stupid parade. But no. Before it started, the hikers congregated near Sun Dog Outfitters and the coffeeshop. Nothing was happening for the longest time. Some people showed up in costume [Col. Mustard was Green Man]. Then we came under heavy water-balloon fire. Some young townfolk were absolutely winging the water balloons at us from the parking lot. It was pretty hilarious when they hit their targets.

And that's how it was for the next 30 minutes, or however long it took to walk the entire main street through town. Hundreds of hikers, armed with water balloons and water guns, walking through a gauntlet of even more heavily armed townfolk. Neither side showed mercy: Dads in their khakis and sunglasses were just as likely to get blasted by a skirt-wearing hiker as we were by little kids throwing their hardest from point-blank range. Hikers from the current class spotted on the street but NOT marching got it the worst. That's what happened to Greendog and Pixie: an absolute pelting.

I did not expect to have that much fun, and it was therefore all the more fun. I just wish I'd had more - many more - water balloons.

The talent show afterward was a bit of wash. Some terrible comedy, bad rapping and a bunch of mediocre bluegrass. I did like bits of the song "Hiker Funk" performed by Many Names.

Saturday night consisted of beer in Tent City, a fire in the woods and sitting inside a big pavilion tent chanting names at full volume, in order to compete with the Dizzy Bat people and their loud counting-down. "Zen! Zen! Zen!," "Fat Kid! Fat Kid! Fat Kid!" It drew the attention of Damascus's finest, who entered the tent, flashlights out, and kind-of surveyed the scene before moving on. Not sure what they were trying to accomplish, as it was clear that the entire acre was one big open container. But my night ended relatively early, myself having been sleep-deprived, sun-baked and buzzed all freaking day.

Next morning, the '09ers did breakfast at Dairy King. There were hugs goodbye, and then I put my pack in Zipper's car for the long ride back up to central Virginia. Trail Days 2010 had come to an end.

The wet days before Trail Days

[Me on an overlook somewhere last week]

Really, when I look back on last week, the 60-mile stretch of trail from Rice Field Shelter to just before Catawba was a soggy blur of hiking.

I hit Keffer Oak, a famous 300-year-old tree:

[Keffer Oak, in a valley between Virginia fields, May 12]

I hit Dragon's Tooth, a famous rock outcropping at 691 miles from Springer:

[Dragon's Tooth, fogbank whitewall, May 13]

I did get to meet some cool new people, Inferno, Long Shanks, Shorts, Cookie and TicToc. But only Long Shanks and I planned to go to Trail Days...