Tuesday became Wednesday, will become Thursday

After Tuesdays tough hike, we settled in here at Wilson Creek Shelter. Had a great fire. Hung out with ‘Feetz’, who celebrated his 51st birthday today but has tight IT Bands in both knees and decided to stay the day, along with Gigs (female) and Mul (male). All great people. However, lil had a little bit of a stomach issue/throw up on Monday that we blamed on dehydration/trail food/exertion became a bigger (similar but worse) problem last night in the middle of the night. It had forced us to lay low today at the shelter while she slept/recovered. This explains some of the body aches no doubt and overall how she was feeling. So unfortunate. Can’t rule out things out here like the water we are filtering, but more likely she already had something going on when we came out. Hard to have any highlights on a day like this but..I have never taken a 0 day (no miles) while out hiking. For me, it was relaxing. Read a book! Lily napped. We were visited by a momma deer and her baby so that was cool!

Bonus ‘Feetz’ section: ok, I have been encouraged to expand on our temp friend ‘Feetz’, so I shall! Now, I know the AT is filled with guys like ‘Feetz’ but this was new for Lil, so here we go. We ‘met’ Feetz first when he blew past us on Tuesday morning. Hawaiian print shorts were memorable, plus the metal music he was listening to as he went by. Saw him at Wilson Creek a little later, sitting in his chair. Told us he busted a trekking pole and he was pondering next steps. We wished him well and kept moving. We had our own problems as we had a mile to climb to Wilson Creek Shelter. We make it and are chilling out when Feetz rolls up. Trekking pole repaired with a stick and rope. A marine ingenuity, according to Feetz. He proceeds to get comfortable in his chair, sharing his story of having broken his pole and falling 200 feet down the mountain. He knew better than to stop himself until the mountain stopped him, because..he previously broke his back. He messed up both IT bands via this fall. He figured he needed to rest. He proceeded to chain smoke while sharing his travels over the first 750 miles of the trail. He worked in the occasional self rolled weed, as well. He started then calling his various boiling buds to explain his dilemma. 200 feet became 300 feet, then 400 feet. IT bands were shot but he would be ok but maybe needs to take it easy. Called wife. Profanity laced discussion about daughter and worthless boyfriend, plus IT bands, plus losing hiking time, etc. I went for water. I gathered firewood. Feetz rested. Loosely entertaining Lily by default. Feetz prepared a dinner of white rice, ground beef, and taco seasoning. Served on a piece of plastic. Eaten with another piece of plastic. Keepin’ it light! A bit later he moved onto a bag of gummies, then a Payday, then a bag of cookies. Unusual volume for a through hiker! Even the other guests, when they saw his chair said ‘you thru hike with a chair?’ He said it was a gift from a man who saw him with his hiker friends in a stop over town, and he didn’t have a chair but they all did. She the man face him his chair and..that’s why he had a chair. Side note - Feetz had just spent 5 days in a small town and this was his first day back on the trail. He had tweeted his back. Feetz stayed in the shelter with us. Lily sent him a strong message by throwing up all night. He DID stay all the next day but set up his tent and slept there the second night! 😛🤮. Bad knees Feetz did manage to go downhill to the water source and back up. I was the first to wish him Happy Birthday on Wednesday. Spent literally all day either calling hikers, or watching YouTube in his tent! He said he was about out of cell but..maybe not. I will add thst wed night, Feetz made some calls to friends who ‘knew everything’ aboit the AT to find a way off the mt for us. Gigs and Mul also dove into to their maps to try to help. When we woke up on Thursday, he was long gone. See ya Feetz. Best of luck getting to Maine! I am sad and sorry to not have captured a picture of us together. It would have brought the story altogether! Lil won’t soon forget ‘Feetz’, that’s for sure!

Monday night and then Tuesday!

Ok, so Monday night the skies opened up, raining on our awesome fire! It was just Lily and I at the shelter, which was nice. We sat in our chairs in the shelter and watched a very heavy rain happen, happy to NOT be out in it! Kinda of relaxing! We earned it. Good news - it all dried up before sunrise so no impact on hiking.

now, about Tuesday’s hike. Maps are deceiving! This little hump almost killed us! It was the hardest part of a hard 6 miles of steep down, steep up, steep down, steep up..

We were so happy to get to Wilson shelter. The highlight of today’s hike were 2 deer sightings and this odd turtle on the path!

now we are chilling at the shelter. Dinner done, fire going, beds set up…waiting to see if it is going to rain (lots of thunder). At the chance anyone wants to know more, here is a pic of our lovely ‘privy’ and as well the nightly ritual of hanging our food so bears don’t get it!

BIG climb to Fullhardt Knob Shelter (Lily Initation?)

And…we are off!

Tough first day as I did not rationally interpret what it would take to climb to the first shelter on the top of a mountain (don’t know the name). We DID make it to Fullhardt Knob Shelter, but it took most of the day to go about 5 miles. 3.5 were up up up. I did not really want Lils first day of backpacking to go like this…I guess we will just call it ‘initiation’! Regardless, we made it and just stopped early. We were whooped! Here’s the climb:

we actually started where it says 220. our home for tonight:

Lily’s entertainment for tonight is..Playing with Beatles!

Tomorrow it looks like we go downhill. Going to take it easy and enjoy the walk!

Roanoke - we made it!

TAfter an 8 (!) year break from backpacking on the AT - I’m back…and I brought The Lil! I said when I hit the 25% complete mark that maybe one day one of my kids would join me. Well, this is the year! Lily said she would like to try it and that was all the motivation I would need! It was kind of a short notice trip so unfortunately some of my usual crew was unable to join in. So..a Daddy/Daughter trip it will be! We head out tomorrow morning starting at the I-81 interchange just north of Roanoke. This skips about 120 miles from where I left off, but it was what appears to be a more manageable section. Will go back and do the other part another time. God willing and the creek don’t rise, we will try to make 57 miles by Friday. Headed for the James River Foot Bridge. We will be near the Blue Ridge Parkway, at times.

So now about today’s travels. Possibly national news - our Allegiant flight out of the St Pete airport got turned around after takeoff due to a bomb threat! That’s a first (thankfully)! Yeah - pretty wild experience. Back to St Pete and they got the guy off and then we were interviewed and off the plane. Finally left again 5 hours late. But..alive and we made it! Whew!

The Lil and I:

The required airline pic along with the Po Po greeting committee when we landed:

2017 AT hike is finished

Another successful AT hike is in the books! I want to thank Curtis, Cori, Sanford, Travis, and Michael for being the 2017 Hiking Team and being such great hiking partners. We all got along, worked as a team, had a ton of laughs and stories, and generally had a good time and a break from reality as we know it. We were infused with plenty of Sanfucius sayings along the way. 

Hurricane Irma forced us to push out a few weeks from the original plan, which cost us another hiker, Guy Nickerson, from coming along. So, we missed having a rookie with us this year! Hurricane Irma also had another strange impact, and that was that Virginia ended up being bone-dry, as there had been no rain since the Hurricane. Every stream was dry. This was the biggest storyline for us on this hike. The secondary one may have been how cold it got at night - down to around 40 degrees - maybe colder. This is WAY colder than I like it! Sleeping in everything I had was necessary. And then there was Sanford. He brought a summer sleeping bag and few clothes. He managed to survive anyway! The cold weather did produce fantastic fires every night and morning. It also helped during the day, as it was not as hot as Spring hiking so we were not constantly soaked in sweat. This helps the feet for sure, due to less sweat, swelling. The change of colors that were evident in the mountains was beautiful. 

We did cross some AT milestones.  Michael went over 100 miles, Cori and Travis are over 200 miles, Curtis is over 300 miles, and I am now up to 600, right on the button! This includes the 8 mile approach trail to Springer Mountain, the official start to the AT on the Southern End.

I capture this year's hike with a picture that...well, does NOT say it all. I found it ironic. Plenty of water 'signs', but no sign of water!

wednesday night/Thursday - last day!

Wednesday night we were mostly tired of setting up camp and plus, we really had to stop at the Chatfield Shelter as we were on the side of Glade Mountain and there really had been no other camping location. So, 4 of us decided to sleep in the shelter, and Michael and Cori set up their tent and hammock, respectively. The pictures show Curtis and Sandford doing inventory of their packs. Its not all their stuff on the table. We were happy to have a picnic table to use at this location. We were also joined by a hiker name Barry. Interesting guy who by his own admission, was mostly just carrying Ramen noodle packs. Cori was jealous. 

As you can see on the shelter sign, the Partnership shelter was our final destination, located at Mt Rogers HQ, where our cars were parked. We were anticipating a light (no food left, little water) hike up Glade Mountain, and then stroll to the finish line. But NO, it was not meant to be. Arguably the worst hiking of the trip was experienced as a vast majority of the last 7 miles were over rocks. Small, ankle-cracking rocks. I didnt see much of anything besides 18" in front of my boots, to make sure I didnt bust it on the last day. We did have a scenic overlook, so the panoramic picture is from there.

We rolled off the trail on thursday around 12:30 pm, having completed roughly 65 miles in 5 days - 4 full days and 2 half days.

Virginia Settlers Museum

We came across the Virginia Settlers Museum from 1894, located right along our Trail. It was a nice place to stop and rest. Some interesting sites from a different time. Cori and I took the Museum tour - free to hikers! Also a clean bathroom with running water was a nice treat - it's the simple things in life! This was two miles from where we would stop for the night - a decent 11 mile day.