Georgia to Maine without a plane: May 2016

Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Atkins to Pearisburg

The format of this post is slightly different. All the pictures are in a single album at the end. It's much easier to just upload them in one shot and embed a single album rather than doing it inline with the post content. The pictures have descriptions so hopefully you can piece it together after reading the full post.

The day we left Atkins was somewhat hectic. We needed to do laundry and resupply before hiking out of town. The nearest laundromat was in Marion, VA, but fortunately a shuttle service ran between the two towns. We stopped at the post office to send some things home then took the shuttle to Marion at 9:30am. When we arrived in town, we noticed that the stop lights were off. As soon as we got to the laundromat, the owner was putting a sign on the door that read, "no electricity". She told us that the power company didn't expect the power to come back until 1:00pm. This posed an issue to us because we needed to be done with everything by 2:30pm so we could take the shuttle back to Atkins. We decided to wait it out in front of the laundromat and within a half hour of arriving, the power came back on and we were able to start a load of laundry. We bought enough food for a few days and waited for the shuttle to come back. We only hiked 7 miles that day. The next day we hit the one fourth point of the trail, which meant we had hiked 547 miles at that point. Soon after we ran into some trail magic and got to eat some fresh strawberries! We continued hiking into a pasture with some cows and got some amazing views of the mountains of Virginia.

The next day was spent walking a ridge that we thought would be easy terrain. Unfortunately, the ridge was super rocky and the trail kind of rollercoastered up and down along the top, which made the day more strenuous than we had planned. We did get one good view from the shelter we stopped at for lunch.

So far, our challenges have been primarily physical, due to tough climbs up and down mountains or battling cold and rain. This lady Friday we encountered our greatest challenge yet. The mental strain that a trip like this takes is not to be overlooked. We found ourselves beginning to get burned out of constantly being in a state of discomfort (going a week without showers or shaving and doing your business in the woods). We decided that we are going to take a few days to go to Washington D.C. for our two year wedding anniversary once we get to Harper's Ferry, WV. We hope that getting out of Virginia and taking a little time off will reset us and give us a boost to finish the last half of the trail. Planning it now gives us something to look forward to. We also decided that we completely hate Virginia. It has beautiful mountains but we really don't like the small towns we have been stopping in. The towns offer very few services so it makes it harder for us to enjoy our zero days when we have to walk around town or find rides to get to places that have laundry or food stores.

Anyways, the same day we both admitted that we were getting mentally exhausted of hiking everyday, a new type of obstacle appeared. Caterpillars began descending from the trees on silky lines and getting into everything. It made for some miserable miles of hiking. Every once in a while, a caterpillar would fall on our heads our drop immediately in front of us and stick to our clothes when we walked through their safety lines. Fortunately, after two days of misery, the caterpillar apocalypse ceased. On the second day, we saw three snakes. One rattlesnake, one HUGE black racer, and a small garter snake. It was a terrifying day. I actually walked right past the black racer and it was Leap who noticed it. When I looked back, I began to question whether I need glasses. It was less than two feet from where I had stepped and was probably around 4ft long. My current theory is that we went from seeing no snakes to seeing several in one day due to the sudden influx of caterpillar food on the forest floor. Could be coincidence too!

Going back to the day before we saw the snakes, we needed to get to Bland, VA to get more food to make it to Pearisburg. The town is 4 miles from the trail so we had to hitch a ride. A tow truck with a large flat bed offered to give us a ride so we rode in the back with another hiker named Timewarp. It was quite the experience! We got our food and then hitched back to the trail. The guy that picked us up was on his way to pick up his wife from the trail. He is driving to her destination each day so she can carry less food and hiking items. That is a setup I would not mind! We hiked another couple of miles and setup camp and attempted to make spaghetti. I bought a 6oz can of tomato paste but had no can opener. I used a tent stake and a rock to mangle it open. I would not recommend this technique to anyone.

The day we saw the snakes, we hit the 600 mile marker, which gave us a small mental boost. At the end of that day, we hiked a half mile off the trail to Trents Grocery. The owners of this small gas station / cafe / grocery store also offer a camping area nestled in a camper graveyard, surrounded by a pasture for their horse. There is also a small building that has a washer and dryer as well as a bathroom with showers. We did our laundry in the mornings but neither of us were brave enough to get in the showers. They were way too nasty. The place was surreal.

We got back on the trail by 10:30am and kept hiking. It was kind of dreary day and probably our lowest point, emotionally, yet. However, as the day progressed, our moods improved. We met some friendly weekend hikers at a shelter and talked with them for a while. We read through the trail journal and found some good trail poetry (contains strong language). We found a good stealth campspot and settled in for the evening. In the morning, the sun was out and we were in high spirits, as we usually are the day we hike into town. The prospect of having clean clothes and a shower is enough to motivate us to get going early in the morning. We did take a small side trail to catch an amazing view of the valley between a couple of ridge lines. We were about 1000ft above the clouds and it made the valley look like a lake. We had several good views that day which can make the day go by very fast. The day ended in our motel with fresh fruit and a strong wifi signal.

We miss home very much but we have no intentions of quitting! Our next stop will either be in Daleville or Troutville. They are at the same mile marker on the trail, it just depends which one has more services (or an all you can eat buffet).

Until then,

Leap and Frog

Monday, May 23, 2016

Damascus to Atkins

Well, it's been another five days since I last posted and eight days since our last zero day. We averaged a little over 14 miles a day since trail days. Part of the reason for the increase in mileage is that terrain is easier in Virginia and plus we are starting to get our trail legs!

Our first day out of Damascus was a little dreary but we managed to escape getting rained on. We followed the Virginia Creeper trail, which is similar to the Mickelson trail in South Dakota in that it is an old rail road track that has been converted to a hiking and biking trail.

Day 2 was very foggy so we didn't get to see much. The fog discouraged us from hiking up to the summit of Mt Rogers, which is the highest peak in Virginia. We did get a cool camping spot right outside of the Grayson Highlands and the fog made for a different kind of beautiful scenery. Another theme the last week has been walking through pastures, so we get to meet cows and avoid their droppings quite frequently.

The third day was when we finally got to walk through the Grayson Highlands state park, which is something we have been looking forward to since we began planning this trip last year. The reason is that the park is home to wild ponies, which have been introduced to maintain the meadows. As we walked toward the park, Leap and I were chatting and very suddenly a pony appeared out of mist and gently trotted onto the trail in front of me. We followed the pony as he began to walk north ahead of us.

We also hit the 500 mile mark as we walked through the park. We are getting closer to meeting our goal of doing 100 miles a week. I updated our spreadsheet that I shared a while ago so that it shows how many miles we need to do per day in order to get to Katahdin by mid October. I will share the link again at the bottom of the post.

The next day was eventful in several different ways. In the morning, we both got a large dose of adrenaline when a branch fell very near us (probably within 30ft of where we were walking). It gave us a good scare and then it happened again in the afternoon, but slightly further away. When we hike all day everyday, we zone out if there isn't much to look at (which is 99% of the time), so when a branch falls randomly, it really puts you back in the moment. Also that day, we were startled when a deer appeared on the side of the trail.

At the end of the day, a thunderstorm rolled in and we got to walk through pouring rain for about an hour. By the time we got to our campspot, we were too tired to cook so we ate some snacks and went to sleep. We discovered that our tent lets in a lot of water from the bottom when it rains hard and one of our sleeping pads now has a leak, so by the morning, one of us is on the floor.

On Sunday, we needed to hike 18 miles to get to Atkins. We hiked at a good pace in the morning and were able to get a soda at a visitor center after 7 miles. Whenever we get some caffeine, we really pick up the pace for the next hour or so. About 3 miles before Atkins, we stumbled upon some trail magic which was held in an old 1895 one room school building. About the time we sat down in one of the desks, a dark cloud appeared overhead and dumped rain for 10 minutes. It then cleared up and the sun came back out. Talk about good luck! We hiked the remaining 3 miles and finally got some good views.

When we got to town, we stopped at a gas station to try to hitch a ride to our hotel across town. Unfortunately, Atkins is a tiny, but spread out town, and our hotel was 4 miles away. This meant no one was headed that way so it took us a couple of hours to find someone willing to pick us up. Normally I wouldn't have had a problem just walking the remaining distance but a very serious looking storm was looming in the distance and coming our way. By the time we got the ride it was pouring rain. The guy who took us was a former truck driver and I understood about a quarter of what he said but he refused my money when I tried to pay him. We thanked him about a million times and checked into the hotel.

We are going to get back to the trail tomorrow and head toward Pearisburg, VA.

Until then,

Leap and Frog

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?page=view&resid=163A0240689BD4D9!282379&authkey=!AImHKwH9_zxNIXI

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Mountain harbor to Damascus, VA

Last seen, we were staying at a bed and breakfast. In the morning, the B&B held up to the second B and we enjoyed the best breakfast we've had on the trail. We picked up some food for the next week and hit the trail around 11am. It is also important to note that on the previous day, we met Rob Bird at the gap just before the B&B. He was giving out trail magic and trying to recruit hikers to help him collect wood for trail days. After talking to him for a while, we ended up exchanging numbers and planning to ride with him from Abingdon, VA to Damascus for trail days (since Damascus is so small, the hotels were full for Trail Days and the nearest vacant hotels were in Abingdon, where Rob was planning to stay). More on Trail Days later in the post.

The day we spent hiking out of Mountain Harbor was incredible. We saw two waterfalls, a mountain cemetery, and we hit the 400 mile mark. We also camped at a little stealth spot right next to the Upper Laurel Fork river, which made for good white noise as we slept.

The next day featured some easy hiking for the first half. At one point we walked through an area of the forest that was burned (but only on one side of the trail). We also hiked past another waterfall and followed the river to another beautiful campspot.

We didn't get going until about 2pm the next day since there was a thunderstorm in the morning. We made it over the next mountain in the afternoon, but couldn't go too far since the next area was in a bear watch. We camped right outside of the zone in a designated campground that was created last year for the very purpose of keeping hikers out of the active bear area, which is right around Watuaga Lake. There ended up being a bear hanging around our campsite that night anyways and we had to scare it off on multiple occasions. There was also a thunderstorm that night and I started to feel nauseous toward the morning. It was probably my worst night yet.

On Thursday, we called an outfitter in Damascus to shuttle us in to town from a road just past Watuaga Dam. We got to the dam but didn't realize which road we needed to be at so when I got a call from the driver asking where we were at, we were surprised we didn't see him. It turns out we needed to hike another mile to get to the correct road. We also met three other people that needed to shuttle into town so that made our ride much cheaper.

We didn't spend much time in Damascus on Thursday. We got another shuttle into Abingdon, checked into our motel and I slept most of the day (I was feeling even more nauseous and had a fever). I felt much better in the morning and was able to eat some food. I was worried I had the noro virus, but my symptoms only lasted 24 hours and I never threw up. Plus, Leap never caught what I had, which we were both grateful for.

On Friday morning, Rob drove us back into Damascus, where Trail Days officially kicked off (http://www.traildays.us/).

We got some free food, listened to a lot of music, met trail celebrities, watched a food eating contest, and caught up with other hikers we hadn't seen in a long time. And I got a new haircut from Rob! The Mohawk is the only style he does, but hey, beggars can't be choosers.

On Saturday, we walked in the annual hiker parade, where those watching the parade hose down the hikers. There was also a hiker talent contest that filled our need for laughter.

On Sunday, we helped Rob tear down his gazebo in tent city and said goodbye to the hikers we had met during the weekend. We got a ride back to the road where we had shuttled from that Thursday and began hiking again. I could go into a lot more detail about trail days and the fun we had, but it would take way too long to write.

We are back in Damascus now, having hiked into town this afternoon. We are officially in Virginia now and will be for probably the next month or more. Approximately a quarter of the entire Appalachian trail is in Virginia. When we are done with this next state, we will be almost half done.

Until the next town,

Leap and Frog

Sunday, May 8, 2016

Hot springs to Mountain Harbor B&B

It's been a while since I've made a post so I guess this will be a long one. So much has happened since Hot Springs. The day we left, we got a ride past the burning area of the trail with a former thru hiker named Yonder. He was about our age and gave us a lot of encouragement. We skipped a total of 16 miles to get past the fire. That day we hiked into a very crowded shelter as the sun was setting. The reason we got there so late was because of a very intense ridge that ended up in our path. The path went up and over very steep boulders making for some treacherous hiking. The views were worth the effort.

We became familiar with the phrase "town gravity" that day. Hikers love town days so much that they make leaving difficult, but once you're back out for a day, your pack starts to lighten up (due to eating food) and you appreciate the outdoors again.

The next day we hiked 15 miles to the next shelter. The only problem was that the water source was another half mile from the camping, so I put on an extra mile just to get 4 liters of water for cooking and drinking.

The next morning was a bit lazy. We didn't leave until well after 10am which concerned me since the forecast was looking like rain. We got to the end of the day and had to hike up to Big Bald. The sky looked ominous and we could hear thunder in the distance. We got to the top and took some amazing photos. We could see a sheet of raining moving across the valley.

We made it to the shelter and got our tent set up and it started pouring almost immediately. We stayed dry that night despite the wind and rain. That morning the sun poked out just long enough to dry off the rain fly so we could put it away.

We took another two days to get to Erwin, TN. The day we hiked into town gave us some beautiful views of the Nolichucky river.

We took a zero in Erwin to resupply, get some mail from Leap's parents (thank you so much, by the way!), and fill up with pizza. We made a crucial contact while in Erwin. The name Miss Janet won't mean much to most, but to thru hikers, she is the most amazing trail angel that exists. She has a van and shuttles hikers around in the south. We met her and exchanged numbers. She ended up shuttling us around, which allowed us to go to Walmart and get a better variety of food than we are used to (aka better variety of tuna and knorr pasta rice sides).

We left Erwin with enough food for 5 days to get to mountain harbor B&B, which has a light resupply store. We made it to Beauty Spot, which is a bald. We had planned to camp on top but it was too windy. Fortunately there were some good spots right past the top of the bald.

The next day was uneventful as we didn't do many miles (mainly due to getting up late and not doing many miles since it started raining and it was a cold day). It did end up snowing too (and it was Cinco de Mayo). The snow and mist made for some surreal moments in the spruce forest we were walking through.

The day after was better. We did make a small side trip to a hostel a half mile off the trail. The trail leading there was incredibly wet and steep, which made the return trip more difficult than it should have been. Greasy creek hostel was a cool place, however, and was worth the trip. The rules were as follows: 1. Take off your shoes 2. Go wash your hands 3. Take a seat. We ended up eating some ice cream, drinking a coke, and getting a new fuel canister.

On the 7th, we stumbled upon some trail magic in the gap right before Roan mountain, which is the last 6000ft mountain until New Hampshire. The ascent was ok until the last couple of miles, which was solid mud and snow.

There wasn't much for views at the top, but I did get to make a small snowman.

We also checked out the highest shelter on the Appalachian trail. It was pretty cool since it had an upstairs.

We ended up hiking almost 16 miles to get to Overmountain shelter, which is an old barn. There was a beautiful view of a valley facing south.

Today, we hiked into the bed and breakfast and had an awesome home cooked meal. It was also our last day in North Carolina. We have another 80 miles left in Tennessee then it's onto Virginia.

Until Damascus,

Leap and Frog