More rain! Woke up to those all-to-familiar pitter patters this morning. Nobody was in any hurry to move so we all stayed in the tent until about noon. The sun decided to show itself for a bit and it cleared up nicely so we packed up and rolled out about 2pm. We started our way up Whitetop Mountain when the skies got dark and thunder rumbled. The climb up to the top was about 2 miles so we were trying to hurry. We all stopped for a breather and we could here a whoosh coming from the valley. You could feel the cooler wind start blowing and could see the hazy color of pouring rain. We dropped our packs to throw on the rain covers and it hit. THe rest of the day was a sloggy slosh up and across the open summit. We decided to set up camp quickly when another squall came in and it was a VERY cold rain. We crawled in the tent and into our sleeping bags to warm up. Miraculously we had a signal and checked the weather. The low the next night was going to drop to 34 in the valley, and at 5000 feet, that means it will be even colder. We were all soaked and our shoes were puddles so we decided to head to town the following day. None of us wanted to experience frozen shoes again.
Friday May 24th
Still rainy and foggy this morning. We decided to definitely head to town and tried for a while to find a ride. Bad news was the closest town with a definite ride was Damascus. Nobody wanted to go BACK there again, but it was the smart choice considering our soaked clothes and shoes with freezing temperatures to follow. About the time we got packed up and our ride was near the sun came out and the clouds lifted. Go figure. It was to late to go back so we went back to Damascus. We decided to get some lunch so we stuffed out faces with pizza, cheesesteaks, and Yuengling. A guy we've been around for awhile named Gothe ate with us and ended up picking up our tab without telling us! That was a nice surprise to what had been a somewhat depressing day thus far. We stayed at a hostel called The Place. It is ran by the Methodist church across the street. It is just a house with a bunch of bunk beds which is exactly what we needed. And with only a $6 donation the fee to stay, it was worth it. So we spent the afternoon drying shoes and restocking on supplies. All in all a good afternoon, just ready to stay dry for awhile!
Saturday May 25th
Finally left Damascus for good this morning! It was a bright sunny morning and we headed back up to Whitetop mountain to pick up where we left off. Today is the day we had been looking forward to for awhile because we would finally be getting to the Grayson Highlands where the wild ponies live! Unfortunately I caught another bug of some sort and began dealing with more stomach issues. I didn't feel terrible or nauseous, just upset stomach all day. We left Whitetop and made our way to Mt. Rogers, the highest peak in Virginia ( about 5200 ft). We went up and near the summit and caught our first glimpse of a pack of wild ponies. We were watching from a distance when a group of about a dozen Boy Scouts ran up and promptly chased the herd away. I wish the leaders of the group would have told the kids not to act like morons and chase off the ponies which lots of people come to see. This weekend is Memorial Day weekend and we immediately noticed a large amount of weekend hikers out. The trail was the fullest we had experienced thus far. It felt a little strange to see that many people around. After passing Mt. Rogers we entered the Grayson Highlands. It's a beautiful park with great views not the surrounding mountains and countryside. This was the area most of the weekend hikers chose to camp in. The trail only stays in the park for a few miles and is really rocky, but it was a nice change of pace from the typical forest. We finally encountered our first group of ponies and they let us approach and pet them. They seemed to care less that we were there, but I'm sure they are very used to people by now. We pushed on a few more miles and came to Wise Shelter, which also doubles as the 500 mile mark!! We were very happy to hit that milestone and stopped not to far from the shelter. We had evidently just missed a trail wedding that had just taken place there, so we didn't get any wedding cake, which is too bad. We finished at 13 miles on the day and stayed dry the entire day! Great success!
Sunday May 26th
I woke up today not feeling great. The thought of eating made me feel funny and was still dealing with the stomach issues, which was worse now. I laid in the tent for about 3 hours trying to decide if I could hike or not. About 11am I felt motivated enough to go , so we broke camp around noon. Gary hiked ahead so it was just Kaci and I. I was moving pretty slow all day and we finally finished at about 9 miles on the day. The trail was super packed with weekend hikers and we even had some traffic jams on the trail with large groups trying to pass each other. It was a beautiful day overall and we stayed dry 2 days in a row! The Warrior Hikers had been invited to hike in the Marion, VA Memorial Day parade, but I wasnt able to go all the way to the meet up point, so Kaci and I sat this event out.
Monday May 27th
Feeling much better today and I have my energy back! I was starting to wonder what was going on with me, but I guess I just caught a 48 hour bug of some sort. Kaci and I decided to head into Marion whenever we got there to resupply and shower, so that was our plan for the next day or so. We stopped near a road at Dickey gap for lunch and decided to try to get to town. We tried to hitch hike for about 30 minutes, and after nobody picked us up, decided to just keep hiking and go to Marion the next day. Was a pretty boring day overall as we were just trying to knock out miles. We ended up at about 15 for the day and set up camp around 7pm.
Tuesday May 28th
Happy Birthday to Gary!!
Kaci and I woke up early today to try and hike the 7 miles to Partnership shelter by 11am to catch the shuttle to Marion. We left camp a 8am and pushed it pretty hard. It was mostly ridgeline, so it was pretty steep and rocky, but we made it at 1045am just in time! Partnership shelter is pretty famous along the trail because there is a phone nearby where you can order pizza and take a shower, so most hikers try to stop there on their way through. We hasn't seen Gary for about 2 days, but as the shuttle pulled in to pick us up, Gary hopped off! He had gone into town the day before to arrange for his new phone to get sent to him and was coming back up for the day. Kaci and I got on and headed for town. We stayed at the Travel Inn for $40 a night, and it wasn't to bad. It won't make the Travel Channel's Top 10 hotels list or anything, but it had water and was clean, so it did the trick. After showering, we walked down to Taco Bell for lunch and to solve some food cravings. We gorged there for about an hour and was happy to enjoy a Cheesy Gordita Crunch again! We then went to the grocery store and Wal-Mart to resupply, and was done for the day about 3pm. This was the first time I slept in a bed in about a month and it felt great! We lounged the rest of the day in the air conditioning and cleaned out our packs. I wanted to mail some stuff home and I think I got about 6 pounds out of my pack! I mailed my North Face jacket home, gloves, a multi tool, and some other stuff I didn't use. It felt good to shed some weight! For dinner we walked down the street to a Mexican restaurant and had a nice dinner. All in all it was a good relaxing day!
Wednesday May 29th
We took the shuttle out of Marion back up to the trail this morning. We pulled in to the parking lot and there was Gary again! He had taken a zero day and stayed back to let us know what the plan for getting to the Pearisburg, VA VFW event. We had about 23 miles to go to the meet up point, so we decided to do a big day, followed by a shorter day. It was a warm and sunny day and we made good time. We knocked out about 12 miles and got to where the AT crosses under I81. We ate a big 1 pound cheeseburger for dinner at a little truck stop restaurant and pushed on. We ended up hiking longer than we expected and into the night for awhile. We finally stopped about 1030pm after 18 miles! It was a good day overall and left us with a short day to the meet up spot!
Thursday May 30th
Woke up today and headed out. We had a short 5 mile day so we wanted to get it done and over with. It was pretty warm today with a high around 85. We got to the pavilion where our link up with our ride to Pearisburg was going to be, and there was trail magic there! So for lunch we had burgers, hot dogs, and lemonade. That was a very nice surprise!
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