Rain, Rain, Go Away!

Stats: Saturday night 5/14, MM 727.5

(92.9 new miles, 736.3 total miles)

It’s May, the rain is supposed to be gone…but it rained every day. Thankfully not a hard or soaking rain every day, but I feel like I was wet much of the week. This week was also harder with phone reception. I think I had 3 days without any reception, which is unusual.

When Mary dropped me off Monday, One-Shot’s family dropped him off at the same time. We started out together, but his goal was 30 miles a day to get to a certain point by Wednesday. So we didn’t hike together for long…although I did manage to hike 21 miles to Pine Swamp Branch shelter. I ran into Conductor and Old Man Bob, got my tent set up in between the rain showers.

Tuesday we started out early, hiked 18 miles to Laurel Creek Shelter. Late afternoon about 7 of us ended up there, had very heavy rain. Rain stopped long enough to set up our tents, but we were all soaked. I had a bad calf pain, prayed about it, it was gone the next day. Thank you, God!

Wednesday hiked about 13 miles to Niday shelter. It was still raining, decided to stay in the shelter. From all the wet weather I had quite a rash. Put on Gold Bond healing cream, prayed, gone the next day.

This section of trail crosses back and forth between
Virginia and West Virginia

Thursday we hiked through what’s called Dragon Tooth. It’s a very narrow trail along the rocks/cliff, some of it at a 30 degree angle. It rained and hailed for about 30 minutes, hiking with Spagmum and we kept right on going. About 15 of us ended up at a hostel near Catawba – it was a 3-car garaged turned into sleeping area. One of the things they offered was a foot massage. Very nice after a long day of hiking in the rain. Ran into some hikers I knew – Spagmum, Dr. Perky (formerly Shimona), Conductor, Highway, El.

 

The pastor Mary and I met at church Sunday told us about a great restaurant called Home Place near Catawba, but said it wasn’t always open on regular hours. It happened to be open Thursday night so we all ate dinner there. Excellent food, and plenty of it – all you can eat mash potatoes, baked beans, fried chicken, pulled pork, roast beef. Yes, it was a great place to eat for a bunch of hungry hikers!



Beautiful views are everywhere!



Friday we could only hike 11 miles to Campbell shelter due to bear activity between there and the next town (Troutville). We hiked along Tinker Cliffs and to McAfee Knob – probably one of the most photographed spots on the trail. We were fortunate to have a break in the rain for our pictures. Yes, that’s me sitting on the edge of that rock. It helps that I was a roofer, for sure. Mary said she would never have gone anywhere near that edge – almost made her dizzy just to look at the picture.

 

Saturday the map showed a fairly easy 15 mile hike to town, but it was a lot harder uphill than it looked. We arrived around 2PM and checked into a hotel. That’s where the story ends this week, will pick back up on Sunday when we head back out. No zero day this week.



Sign still there from a fire, didn't see any signs of it

Speaking of zero days, wanted to tell you about zeros and nearos. A zero day is when you don’t hike at all, a complete day of rest. Usually requires 2 nights hotel stay, so many people do nearos, which is hiking 7 miles or less (some people say 4 miles or less) and arriving into town late morning. The goal is to average 15-20 miles per day for the most part, with one zero or nearo each week.

There seems to be less people on the trail now, but there are still what are called bubbles – groups of people that end up at the same spot at the end of the day. I enjoy running into some of the same people at the shelters and hostels. This week I hiked with Fugitive and Conductor, and Spagmum and Dr. Perky. Next week may be different, but I’m sure I’ll see them all again.

a bit more wildlife

Please pray for my foot – the other foot, the one I had bunion surgery on 11 years ago. I did something to it, something doesn’t feel right so I’m going to the doctor on Friday to have it checked out. My foot doctor is in Charlottesville and I’ll be about an hour from there by Friday. Yes, I’m about 1/3 of the way through. I really want to keep going, so I’m praying the x-ray doesn’t show anything.

Thank you for all the comments and for your support, I am very encouraged by you all.

(From Mary – sorry for the delay in posting this, busy weekend J)