Date: 2011-06-23
From: Grace Lutheran Church

To: Blackrock Hut
Miles today: 20.0
Weather: light rain

Day 94 ¢ It was nice to sleep in an air conditioned environment and I was up 6:45am. They want everyone out of the building by 9:00am so I elected to get a relatively early start. Since I had washed clothes yesterday I had laid everything out to thoroughly dry so I basically had to pack from scratch. I was able to get a ride to Weasie¢s from a trail angel named Kirby who was at the church to pick up another hiker. Weasie has a hiker special, all the pancakes you can eat for $7.00. I asked the server what the record was and she said around 19-20 pancakes. These pancakes are 8-9¢ in diameter so I can not imagine eating that many, she also said the hiker who ate that many got sick. I ate one along with my scrambled egg, fried potatoes and sweet tea. After breakfast I was ready to hit the trail. Waynesboro is a neat town, they post a list of 20 or so individuals that you can call for rides and I decided to try my luck at that versus trying to hitch hike. I went half way down the list and called Roy, explained to him where I was and where I wanted to go and he said he would be there in 15 minutes. That is pretty neat service for hikers. He arrived and we started up the 5 mile ride to the trail head at Rockfish Gap. We were going through the normal Q/A¢s and I mentioned that I was in no hurry to complete the hike and was taking my time and enjoying experiencing God¢s creation. Somehow, Grace Lutheran came up and he said he was volunteering that night to be there to monitor the hikers. I asked if he knew Irma and he said yes and I asked if he was a member and he said he was an atheist. I immediately said, ¢I do know how you do that.¢ He responded back as quickly, he did not know how I believed in God. It happened so fast and I felt unprepared to talk to him just as we pulled into the trail head parking lot. I felt that I did not say enough to serve as a witness to him. I was on the trail at 9:05am and in 20 minutes I entered Shenandoah National Park. Their rules are similar to the Great Smoky Mountain Park in that they want you to stay in huts or camp near huts. They have shelters which are for day use and the overnight shelters are called huts. This evidently is the normal terminology as one hikes north. At 9:30am it started to rain, so I had to take my pack off, pack away my electronics and put on my rain cover on my pack. The rain did not last long but it was cloudy all day and quite cool, probably in the mid-70¢s. I got to the side trail to the first shelter/hut at 12:30pm after 7 miles. I did not go to hut but ate my lunch along the trail. That morning at Weasie¢s, I had them make me a turkey and cheese club, so that tasted pretty good. Once I started up again, I had started thinking about my evening accommodations. The next hut was 13 miles away which would mean a 20 mile day. Since this was the second longest sunlit day I knew I had enough daylight, I just did not know if I had enough stamina. I was feeling ok and still felt strong. Along the way I ate a bunch of blueberries and also found some nice ripe black raspberries. The blueberries are still small but very sweet. Even though today was cooler, I was still sticking to my hydration strategy, at every water source; I was drinking at least a liter of water or more. Around 4:30pm I heard a noise in some heavy bush about 15 yards away to my left. I looked for the white tail of the deer to pop up and head into the woods. That is a very common occurrence but instead I saw this black mass and it saw me. I immediately reached into my side pack and got my pepper spray and started looking around to make sure that there were no cubs in the area. One trail rule is never get between a mother bear and her cubs. I decided that the bear was alone and was therefore probably a young male, probably in the 150-200 pound range. My camera stopped working several days ago so it was unavailable. The bear came out onto the trail about 20 yards in front of me and looked right at me. Another rule is never look at a bear directly in the eyes because you will be challenging them. That is hard not to do, when you are so close. So the bear starts walking down the trail, turning around looking at me every 10-15 yards. I am following it, at a slower pace, because I want some general idea where he exits the trail and re-enters the woods. The heavy bush transitioned into more of wooded environment so when he got off the trail I was able to see him 40-50 yards away. I walked fairly quickly and got out of his domain. That encounter pretty much sealed my decision on where I was going to sleep tonight, I was going to do the full 20 miles and get to a hut. At least at a hut I only have to outrun the slowest person to be safe. At 5:30pm, I stopped along the Skyline Parkway and ate my sausage, cheese and bread. I figured I needed the nourishment to make those final few hours. I arrived at Blackrock Hut at 7:40pm and the hut was full of hikers and boy scouts. I set up my tent, went and got water, drank another liter of water and headed to bed. The day was good; fortunately it was not too hot and was not too humid even with the rain. The other good thing in doing 20 miles today meant I only had to do 6 miles tomorrow to get to Loft Mountain campground where I was to meet Megan. The 20 miles today increases my total mileage to 874 miles. Since I have lost 10-14 days with all my dehydration problems I am making plans to go to Maine in early August and hike south. I could probably make Katadhin by the first of October hiking north but I rather take the time deadline out of my equation and take my time. There are many advantages of doing this which I will expand on later.