July 6 - 12 (Miles 767.1 to 843.0)

July 6 - Thunder Ridge to Johns Hollow Shelter

We weren't on the trail until 1 o'clock and we had 15 miles to do! Oops! When were filtering water, I dropped my water bottle in the rushing creek! Will ran after it and fell in the creek twice! So much for staying dry! Atleast he got my water bottle! It was a rush to get to the shelter before dark, but we made it!

July 7 - Johns Hollow to Brown Mountain Shelter

We were hoping to to do a 24 mile day but because of rain, the Virginia Blues, and I having a hard time climbing for some reason, we ended up stopping one shelter short at 18 miles.

July 8 - Brown Mountain Shelter to Hog Camp Gap

It was a dreary morning and the Virginia Blues were hitting me so hard. One forth of the trail, 500 miles, are in Virginia. It kind of gets depressing. The past couple weeks, with all the rain and the so few views, have lowered our spirits. Around noon we reached a bald. A bald! My favorite parts of the trail! So we spent a few hours up there, on accident.... :D We stopped for water when it started raining. Not again! :( So we were like 'What the heck, we'll just camp here'. It was a cute field and it was so nice relaxing in my hammock. Exactly what I needed to raise my spirits.

July 9 - Hog Camp Gap to Harpers Creek Shelter

Finally saw another bear! Yay! Climbed Spy Rock, a nice rock scramble to a view. While hiking down The Priest I rolled my ankle and smacked my knee on a rock. Man that hurt! And to add insult to injury, an hour later my foot caught climbing over a fallen tree and I landed on the same knee. Owww. We ended our 22 mile day with a few minutes of hiking in the dark. Not to bad though, I only barely needed my head lamp.

July 10 - Harpers Creek Shelter to Maupin Field Shelter

We had planned for another 22 mile day, but a couple of things didn't go as planned... As we were nearing the top of the mountain, Will stepped off to the side of the trail to a view. I hadn't seen him do this and thought he was still ahead of me. When I reached the top and saw he wasn't there, I assumed he had continued on without me. I tried to catch up but couldn't see him, which was weird because usually when he gets too far ahead of me he usually stops and waits. So I start screaming for him, trying to catch him, but I had a little thought in the back of my head that maybe he is behind me. I don't know what to do, keep going, turn around, or just sit there. When you are separated from someone, you are supposed to stay put, but what if Will was waiting for me and not looking? I got part of the way down the mountain stopped and waited for 5 to 10 minutes and decided he must be behind me and turned around and started climbing the mountain. In the mean time Will had hiked back down the other side of the mountain looking for me, saw I wasn't there, ran up the mountain, and started down the side of the mountain I was actually on. When we finally found each other, we had probably been apart for about 45 minutes. This event combined with our 2 thousand foot climb that took longer than expected, we decided that we weren't going to make 22 miles. The day wasn't a whole loss though! A family on a short trip stayed at the shelter with us and they had an adorable puppy!

July 11 - Maupin Field Shelter to Waynesboro, VA

We hiked 6.5 miles and got a shuttle into town. Food! Mountain Dew! A bed!

July 12 - Waynesboro, VA

The weather said it is supposed to storm. I know, I know, 'You can't make it to Maine, if you don't hike in the rain'. But at this point we don't care anymore. We are sooo sick of rain. Our shuttle driver even said yesterday that this has been the wettest season in years. So we stayed in town. 

July 6 - Thunder Ridge Overlook to Johns Hollow Shelter ( mile 767.1 to 782.0)

We thought about leaving the hotel early. But it didn't happen. We left the hotel and drove to the overlook and took pictures. The weather was beautiful!

The sky really WAS this blue and the clouds just hung right there!

Views of the trail on either side of the overlook.

Hi, Dad! Wish you were here!

The gnats were out in big clouds, flying around our faces. ugh!

Time for us to head back to the trail.

July 5- Buena Vista (zero day #2)

Mom didn't like like the motel we were in, so we found a new one. We had lunch at Applebee's and drove to downtown Lexington, VA, and saw Despicable Me 2. I tried on some new shorts Mom brought, finding out I can actually wear pants 4 sizes smaller than I used to wear! Woot! Woot! We packed our food supplies and hung out at the motel. Tomorrow we say goodby to Rachel, Katie, and Mom.

July 4- Buena Vista (zero day) Happy Independence Day!

We slept late and then got sandwiches, potato salad, and sodas from the Amish store. Then we waited for Mom and Katie to get here. Their ride was not uneventful. A four month old tire blew out while they were traveling 65mph down a highway in the middle of nowhere. A nice Ohio state trooper and a firefighter/emt pulled over and changed the tire. Then, while on the interstate in the middle of Charleston, WV, a sudden downpour, including lots of hail hit.

 

We had a late dinner at DQ with the sounds of fireworks outside and then went to sleep.

July 3- Thunderhill Shelter to shuttle ride to Buena Vista, VA (1.5 miles)

We stayed in the shelter until everyone left, so we had room to move around. We hiked 1.5miles to the Blue Ridge Parkway where we had a shuttle come rescue us from the nasty weather and take us to a motel. We hung all of our belongings out to dry, went to Subway, took showers, ate Mexican and went to bed.

July 2- Bryant Ridge Shelter to Thunderhill Shelter (mile 755.5 to 765.7)

It rained today.

A lot.

It flooded.

We got wet.

Very.

The trail was a creek.

Literally.

We had lots of fun complaining about it.

We reached a one mile side trail to a waterfall. We all thought, 'We can't get any more wet, what the heck!'

We were wrong.

We all fell down.

Will and I fell on the stupid wooden stairs that didn't have any traction on them. Rachel fell on a slippery rock, somehow getting even more wet and muddy than she was before!

We were supposed to see an FAA tower. Will saw it for a moment, turned around to see if Rachel and I were close behind and when he turned back, it was lost in the fog! Here's what we SHOULD have seen as one of our landmarks. (We did end up seeing it in the distance on July 6 while Mom was driving us back to the trail!)

You can see the trail cutting through the grass. Can you believe we couldn't see this!
 

Soon after this we came to a rock formation called, 'The Guillotine'. The trail goes underneath this boulder.

We hiked through ankle deep water to the shelter we thought we'd never get to. It was a 6-person shelter that housed 7 on the floor and 2 hanging from the rafters in their hammocks that night. We couldn't hang out our wet belongings to dry, just balled them up in a corner.

July 1 - Cove Mountain Shelter to Bryant Ridge Shelter (mile 748.5 to 755.5)

Swimming Hole Day! We played in a swimming hole. I saw a snake on the other side of the creek, sunning itself. Will threw rocks at it and we are 99% sure he severed it in half. Heeheehee!

We spent a couple of hours there building cairns and playing in the water.

 

We hiked 7miles to a big, beautiful 20-person shelter with a nice privy, except for the palm-sized spider inside. Will was our hero and killed it. The shelter had two posts that had eyelets in them that were the perfect space apart to hang my hammock, so I lounged for a bit.

June 30 - Wilson Creek Shelter to Cove Mountain Shelter (mile 734.7 to 748.5)

We stopped at Bobblets Gap Shelter where there was a very nice privy. It had a clear roof so there was light inside and you didn't have to wear a headlamp. It was clean, not having a bunch of spiders in it. If the nice privy is the highlight of our day, you can see that this part of the trail isn't so exciting. Not so good for Rachel.

Rachel and I almost walked past Cove Mountain Shelter, so we thought Will, who was hiking ahead of us a bit, may have missed it, too. I yelled for him, but heard no answer. So I blew my whistle. Will, who was actually in the shelter, scolded me and reminded me that the whistle is for emergencies. We said, 'It WAS an emergency. We didn't want to have to hike any further to find you!'

While making supper, Rachel spilled her noodles on the floor. Now she experienced first hand the sad feelings I had when I spilled my Mac and cheese a while back. Haha!

June 29- Daleville, VA to Wilson Creek Shelter (mile 723.5 to 734.7)

We didn't leave for the trail very early. After Penny dropped us off at the trail to drive home, we decided to go to Wendy's for lunch before heading out. When food is an option, it is the ONLY option!

We hiked 11 miles on Rachel's first day, a great deal for her first day with a full 37 pound pack! At one point we had to cross a fence using a stile. We have seen a few different kinds.

 

 

 That night it rained and the water was blowing in on us, even though we were sleeping at the back of the shelter. We hung our tarps up across the open front to try to keep the rain out.

 

 

June 28 Daleville, VA - zero day

We bought new (smaller) back packs and did laundry.

Rachel, a friend from church, is doing her senior project for Greenwood High School on the topic of the Appalachian Trail. She is going to spend a week hiking with us. She has never hiked or camped before. It should be quite the adventure!

Rachel and her mom Penny arrived today and we went to 'The Home Place' for dinner. They serve food family style, I haven't gone to a restaurant that does this before. It's like they don't want to make any money, they just kept giving us more and more food because they knew we were hikers. Rachel ate two bowls of mashed potatoes herself and she hadn't even hiked yet! We convinced Rachel to send home her heavier sleeping bag and use a blanket from her car instead.

June 27- Johns Spring Shelter to Daleville, VA (mile 704.7 to 723.5)

Today we made it to McAfee Knob, which is the most photographed spot on the AT.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A trail Angel gave us sodas and pointed out where we would be hiking the rest of the day from the knob. We hiked Tinker Cliffs, which were literally parts of the trail on the edge of a cliff. Will kept walking on the very edge, jumping gaps from rock to rock. I pretended to be his mother and said, 'Don't fall! Stop doing that, you're going to fall!'

 

We wanted to make it in to town in time for BBQ, but we were very tired. Luckily, the restaurant was open until 9:30! Since we were hikers, we got free banana pudding. Yumm!

June 26- Pickle Branch Shelter to Johns Spring Shelter (mile 691.1 to 704.7)

We stayed at the shelter late because we we talking with our friends. Hiked to Dragons Tooth. Climbing up up was easy, but the thought of climbing back down terrified me! Will climbed all the way to the top! I didn't want him to go up there, but I knew he would anyway.

We climbed up the part below where I am standing. You put your back against one side and your feet on the other and 'walk' up the rocks that way!

 

Will is more daring than I am!

We climbed down the Dragons Back luckily before it started raining. And by that, I mean poured. We learned a lesson about sticking with your hiking partner because our friends Salamander and Poptart got separated and kept chasing after each other in the rain.

Later this day we almost got attacked by a cow. It was like he was a thug, standing on the trail with his cronies behind him, saying, 'Do you wanna go past me! Huh? Do ya? Wanna fight, bro? Do ya?' He kept stomping his foot. His buddies got tired and walked away and he realized he had no back-up, so he let us go by, with a look that said, 'Just this once.'

June 25- Laurel Creek Shelter to Pickle Branch Shelter (mile 668.5 to 691.1)

Today was a 23 mile hike. We saw the Keiffer Oak Tree, which is one of the largest oak trees on the Appalachian trail. It is 18 feet in circumference! It was HUGE!

Today is the fifth anniversary of Will and Sofia's first date. We got a cell phone signal, so we took a break and he got to call his girly friend!

 

We hiked along bits of an exposed ridge line and crossed big rock slabs. I tripped and fell, but I caught myself in a squishy spot. The worst of my injuries were some tiny splinters that I discovered a few days later and had Will dig out! Our water filter kept getting clogged and it held us up for a bit. We still had 10 miles to go at 4pm and had a brutal hike left. There was a bench along the trail that tempted us, but we worried that if we sat down we might not get back up. We did end up stopping at the Audie Murphy monument. He was the most decorated soldier in WW2.

It seems like they overlooked the maintenance of the overlook.

We got to do our first night hike, not arriving at the shelter until after 9pm. We hiked a mile and a half in the dark. That might not seem like a lot, but that is 45 minutes of hiking in the pitch black! Our hike was rewarded by seeing our friends Poptart and Salamander at the shelter. Salamander just wanted to chitchat, but we wanted to sleep!

June 24- Bailey Gap Shelter to Laurel Creek Shelter (mile 654.0 to 668.5)

We hoped to go 21 miles today, but ended up doing only 14.5. The part we hiked in the morning was very rocky and it slowed us down. We had a 2,000 foot descent, followed by a 2,000 foot climb in about 6 miles. It would have been rather late if we had hiked to the next shelter.

June 23- Rice Field Shelter to Bailey Gap Shelter (mile 637.6 to 654.0)

The highlight of today was stopping by The Captain's Place. This man lets hikers camp on his property and also hands out free sodas. To get there, though, you have to ride a zip line across the creek! Very fun! We left our backpacks behind to play on the Zip Line. Then we hiked four more miles to the shelter. Ron Burgundy caught up with us again and we got to spend a hilarious night with him.

June 22- Pearisburg, VA to Rice Field Shelter (mile 630.8 to 637.6)

We only have 7 miles to hike today, so we weren't in a hurry to leave town. We sat in Hardee's for a few hours. Later, I ate macaroni and cheese out of a ziplock back, on top of a mountain, while watching the sun set. How often can you do that?

 

 

June 21- Wapiti Shelter to Pearisburg, VA (mile 613.2 to 630.8)

Today is the summer solstice, therefore it is National Hike Naked Day. Will and I did not participate. That would be awkward! We were happy because we were approaching town and thought, 'Good, we didn't see any naked people.' But, turns out, there was a man approaching us. I noticed he had no shirt on, so I quietly said, 'Oh, crap, Will! He's naked!' and I turned away really fast. Will, on the other hand, was not so lucky and got an eyeful! Hahaha!

June 20 - Jenny Knob Shelter to Wapiti Shelter (mile 599.0 to 613.2)

We had planned on doing another 24 mile day, but we found out there was a store 1/2 mile off the trail that sold real food (as in they cook burgers), so, obviously, we had to get a piece of that action! It worked out okay because we got to spend the night at the shelter with our friend Ron Burgundy. He is hilarious and we hadn't seen him in a while.

600 miles! Woot! Woot!