Misc. Photos

Here are a few more pictures of my journey - they are kind of random. I apologize. And they will probably continue to be random - so I will apologize one last time and never again :)



Perhaps 2 minutes before the Hiker Parade/Water fight at Trail Days. We had filled approximately 100 water balloons to throw at the town folk while they sprayed us down with water guns, fire hoses, and sprinklers.

Walking Stick 75 (aka the original Walking Stick) cooking scrumptious pancakes for breakfast. This wonderful man made many wonderful meals during our stay at Trail Days. Thanks!

A small portion on Tent City - our temporary home for a week or so. There were supposedly 3000 or so tents throughout the weekend during Trail Days and different 'neighborhoods' in Tent City itself. We stayed in a neighborhood named Riff-Raff near the creek.

A restaurant in Pearisburg, VA named after me! Awesome.

Pyrofly taking a ride on the zipline to The Captain's house across the rivercreek. He's sporting a kilt - just a fancy name for a man-skirt which is relatively common on the trail. The Captain had a hiker feed the day before we arrived, but we were able to enjoy some leftovers and the crew of friendly folks who decided to stay another day. Zipline as a form of transportation is truly the way to go. Sometimes I wish I could zipline from a mountain-top to town versus 3 or so miles of walking down down down...but that would probably be cheating. but it would be fun.

More to come!

Misc. Photographs

Partnership Shelter - one of the shnazziest on the trail - has a functioning warm water shower and sink, two levels, covered porch, and is close enough to a road with pizza delivery...definitely one of the more appealing shelter meals...


Little ponies in Grayson Highlands.

Enjoying the nice weather and spectactular hiking in Grayson Highlands...beautiful place. And good hiking temps too - I'm wearing long sleeves and pants, but was comfortable.

Somewhere in Virginia on a beautiful sunny day.

Mysteries solved...

A skunk took my shoes.



We've been walking along/crossing over the Blue Ridge Parkway (BRP) for a week or so now. Lots of nice views scattered here and there between lots of mountains and spring trees. I must say, the flower scents are wondrous. I sometimes forget I'm a stinky stinky hiker. (I'm not at the moment, though, cause I'm in Waynesboro at the Lutheran Church Hostel - so I've taken a shower AND done laundry).



I should also mention the privies in the BRP have been beautiful - by privy standards. There's a huge hole the size of a basement, a real toilet seat/stand on a concret slab inside an exquisitely built wooden toilet home, and you can actually stand up inside without having accidently hitting the toilet and feeling grossed out. Going doo-doo out in the woods is almost better that privies actually. But it does require some hefty physical labor - digging a hole at least six inches deep :) Anyway, the Natural Bridges AT Hiking Club gets kudos from me for best privies on the trail thus far.



We've been trying to do bigger days without taking shorter breaks during the day meaning a couple days getting into camp after dark - not so much my cup of tea. I just don't like it. You have be quiet so you don't wake people up because hikers midnight in actually 9 pm. hang food bags in the dark. set up in the dark and still be quiet. go to bed on a full stomach. wake up early so you don't have to get into camp late the following night. It just doesn't create good trail habit making.



We got into Thunder Hill Shelter late several nights ago. After being quiet/hanging food bag/eating/going to bed, etc, I awoke in the middle of the night needing to take a tinkle. And upon waking up, I hear a noise ruffling through some plastic - figured it was a mouse and carried on with my nightly wake-up call. But I couldn't find my brand new hiking shoes (bought just a couple days prior). I also noticed all the other shoes were scattered about, and a single sock without it's pair. And as I crawl back into bed, I saw a larger-than-mouse shadow stroll down the mountainside...scared the living sh*t out of me.

So the next morning, we discover my shoe is not the only missing, but both Pyrofly and Y-Knot have a missing croc each, and Wingo's sock is nowhere to be found. (I had put all the remaining shoes/socks inside the shelter before I went back to bed). Y-Knot crawled out of bed first and found the missing items minus his own Croc and Wingo's sock...and Wingo only had one pair of socks on him...uh oh. Neither were ever found.

After pondering what the dark shoe stealing shadow could be (perhaps a raccoon), Pyrofly and I sighted the perpetrator...a skunk with a white tail casually yet catiously strolling up the mountainside - to it's sock/croc filled nesting sight perhaps. Excellant. It wasn't scared of us. Probably knew we weren't gonna run up the mountainside banging at it with a ferocious stick...seriously, there's not much one can do about a skunk. I mean, we do stink, but we don't stink like skunk spray stink - well at least, I don't think we do.

But we were informed later that peroxide and baking soda works wonders on getting the skunk stink off of misbehaving skunk chasing doggies...

Slackpacking

I'm a slacker. If you're familiar with the AT, you might know what this means - if not, prepare to learn something new...cause seriously, how can anyone walking to Maine be a slacker?!

Two days ago, I landed back at another place I visited on my bike trip - Catawba, VA. There's not much to the town/valley, but it sure is pretty and has the Homeplace. Back in '06, we came across The Homeplace closed (only open Thurs - Sun), but we arrived on Thursday this year - BBQ option night!! It's a huge old farmhouse that was converted into a restaurant back in 1982, and they've been serving home cooked food family style since then - that means All You Can Eat - a very important term for thru-hikers. It was sooooooooooo yummy - words can't even describe, so I'm not even gonna try. But fried chicken, roast beef, real mashed potatoes, real green beans, cole slaw, bbq pork, spiced apples (not from a can), cherry cobbler topped with ice cream, sweet tea, beans, etc...man, we were salivating...for real. it was good, and i left stuffed and happy.



The General Store in town let us stay in their backyard for a small fee - the store hasn't changed much in three years - not too surprising. We woke up the next morning after a night of feeding and relaxing to rain and fog. excellent. (this right now is my favorite word - if something sucks and is just not going right, I say "excellent" and somehow, I feel a little better. excellent). We've been hearing about McAfee's Knob forever and the views of all of Virginia the day would bring, so we were not looking forward to hiking on and missing yet again another beautiful day only to see a blank white-ish grey mixture of hydrogen and oxygen mixed together...otherwise known as fog and clouds. Not my favorite view. So we hung around Catawba for a bit waiting for the clouds to depart. They did not.



So long story short, we ended up catching a ride with Trampoline (he had contacted a trail angel shuttle driver who loves her cats) to Daleville 20 miles up the trail. Pyrofly needed new hiking shoes desperately (700+ miles, holes in the sides - not a pleasant sight...and Daleville has an outfitter, so it all worked out. We were planning on hiking south from Daleville back to Catawba and hitching back. Then we ran into Denali and Gorgonzola and they already had a ride to Catawba planned out and were gonna hike north from there - so we followed...and left all of our gear minus our packs and snacks and a few other necessities in their hotel room and slacked.



Man, slacking is a powerful thing. Just to clarify, the term "slackpacking" refers to hiking a section of the trail without your full pack - either emptying it out significantly or using someone elses daypack. Basically, one who slackpacks is a slacker, and I was that. And hiking 20 miles was far easier than ever before...I felt I could have easily walked another 20. so much less strain on the muscles. And the weather was spectacular - amazing hiking and views from both McAfee's Knob and Tinker Cliffs. I've been very anti-slackpacking for myself since the beginning, but this go around it all worked out and was worth it.

I don't care to make slackpacking a habit - and that was why I was so against it. I had never cared of other people did it, nor did I truly believe they were 'cheaters,' even if i gave a few people a hard time about it - but that was just for fun. There are so many opinions out there about what a thru-hike is...that's why HYOH (Hike You Own Hike) is such an important philosophy out here. And my HYOH includes one at least one slackpack - part of the whole experience, right?

And just to make sure you understand - the food at the Homeplace is so yummy to my tummy. I'd go for some green curry right now, too. And shave ice, regular ice cream, burritos, pho, tomatos, and grilled zuchinni dusted with salt and pepper would do as well.

Malfunctioning gear :(

Slowly we are moving along. About 3 miles an hour seems to be the average pace for me (not including breaks), which really is slow for many modes of transport, but not so much on foot with an oversized bag on my back. Sometimes I wish I could just take my pack off and run down the trail - I would get to my destination at least 2x faster.

The trail in Virginia is getting rocky, and my feet don't like it so much. I've also gotten blisters for the first time. I had changed out my shoes in Damascus from boots to trail runners. They were working great til the first rain came and BAM, blister on my heels. excellant. I've been ducktaping them ever so delicately with a bit of gauze in between, and they are heeling fine.

I've also had my first significant gear malfunction - my water filter broke. Gotta call REI to get a replacement, I suppose. I have an inline water filter - so the dirty water goes into the Camelbak style bag, the filter is attatched to the hose...so you suck untreated water from the back and the first half of the hose, it goes through the filter and our comes clean water through the second half of the hose into your mouth. It's easy and convenient. But for now, I'll just have to rely on the kindness of others to filter water for me (I do have some treatment tablets just in case, but would rather use filtered h2o).

I'm currently at "The Captian's" at mile 646-ish. The Captain had a 'hiker's feed' that we missed by just a day because we were lolligagging in Pearisburg too long. But he allows people to camp on his property anytime during the season - and he has a zip line to get across the large creek to his casa. In just a few more miles, we'll be at our 1/3 distance barrier. pretty neato.

I'm lolligagging again. Pyrofly and I have been trying to get a super early start, and it is now 11:36 and I am no where near ready to go. ahhhh!!!

til next time.

I can't upload photos...but I do have a massive update!

I'm trying to upload some more photos, but this computer seems to have some restrictions...and the space bar is a little bit of a pain in the derrier to use, so forgive me if there are some words running together.

I suppose a simple worded update will have to do now...but I've got some really cool pictures!

Anyway, it has been a while, hasn't it??? I FINALLY left Damascus after nearly ten days there. Me and Pyrofly got sucked into volunteering (which is a good thing) with Tent City to get the tentsites ready for Trail Days. It was worth the break - and I think my body genuinely appreciated the time off. Trail Days was fun...it definitely served its purpose of seeing folks I haven't seen in a while. I think I mentioned before that the town attracts nearly 27,000 people or so during the three days of festivities, which include a hikers parade/water fight with the spectators, food, tent city, vendors from various manufacturors - the vendors had many free give-aways raffle style (none of which I won),and repaired any damaged products cost free. But that sort of makes sense because we are basically walking advertisements for their products. I got my packs seams resewn - not much of a significant repair, but needed and appreciated nonetheless.

And one more time before I leave the Trail Days subject, THANK YOU :) again Walking Stick 75 for all your trail magic!!! - the meals you cooked were amazing, and I never thought I'd bake a cake on the trail!

Since Damascus, we've made it through the 1/4 distance completed barrier...which is roughly 547 miles down, 3x that many to go....ahhhhhh!!!! But I'm actually still having loads amount of fun, so it's all good.

It rained while I slept for the first time in ages. And for the record, I smell worse than I have ever smelled before. My clothes will not smell clean ever again, I don't think. Even after I wash them, they still stink - there is a slight florally cleanish odor to them, but it is mostly overpowered by hiker stench. i guess. ewwww. grody.

Ohhh, it was cool visiting Troutdale again - we were there maybe five days ago. Christina and I rode through there on our cross-country bike ride ( http://stephonabike.easyjournal.com/). It's not much of a big town, but the baptist church has a bunkhouse set up, a nice lawn for tents, showers, towels, and Jerry's Restaurant just down the way. I ate there maybe three years ago on our bike journey and met 2006 thru-hikers who helped inspire me to actually hike the trail one day...and after three years and many more inspirational people, moments, movies, etc. I'm finally out here doing it and loving life.

Taking ten days off for Trail Days has sort of mixed up the group of people surrounding me, so I am more or less hiking with a new everchanging crew of folks. And there have been quite a few people to leave the trail. Like Pineapple...I'm glad I got to hike with you for a bit and hopefully I'll see you in NYC! (And no, we did not pack out the white picket fence...how sad).

We got to see a movie drive-in style in Marion, VA. We intended to stop in Atkins for post office purposes - but missed the closing time just before Memorial Day weekend by 4 minutes. Then we ran into Z and Zippedy at the Ingles in Marion while resupplying food and they informed us of the Drive-in...so we didn't actually drive in, we walked in with sleeping pads and sleeping bags. But Night at the Museum 2 and Star Trek were both playing. It was fun. I fell asleep before Star Trek ended. oops.

Today, we have had an abundance of Trail Magic. There were nearly 8 people at Laurel Creek tenting/hammoking. Pyrofly was taking his time getting ready this morning, and it all worked out cause around 9 am, a church group from Arkansas here just for the week drove up and invited those of us still there (5 people) to a breakfast feed for hikers. Awesome. The food was soo yummy, hot, delicious, filling, and greatly appreciated. We then hiked 7 miles to the road to Bland with a man whose name I don't know who had food and chilled Capri-Suns waiting for us...then he offered me, Pyrofly, Jumper Cable, Spring Peeper and Sparky the Plugs a ride into town - which is great because we've heard Bland can be a hard town to hitch in and out of. Anyway, I'm in Bland, VA now. Hopefully we'll be able to get a ride back to the trail easy enough...which is what I should be doing now.

So yeah, it's kind of a random update, but it works. Computers seem to be harder to find, but I'll write again soon...

Anyone wanna give me a ride back to the trail head???

much aloha.

deja vu

I've made it to Damascus. This is my second time here! It's great to be back. The town is having its 'Largest Yard Sale of the Year,' though, so it's actually a bit overwhelming with all the people and cars. And I'll be back next week for Trail Days with even more people. My understanding is that this town attracts about 30,000 people in a three day period. That's a lot of people. And I'll be one of them.

Unfortunately, this has to be a quick update. I'm just having a difficult time figuring out what to write. I think it's because I haven't had my town coffee yet. On the trail I don't drink coffee and am fine, but in town coffee is the first thing I want in the morning. So I guess I'm just half-way addicted. :)

But we officially in our fourth state and 463 miles down...a lot more to go. There have been some crazy hard and crazy beautiful mountains to go up and over. Some wonderful trail magic. Some not so great rain, and lots of lovely sunshine.

I'll write more soon. hopefully with a few more photos.