Date: 2012-05-16
From: Whitetop Mountain Rd

To: Hurricane Shelter
Miles today: 22.6

I woke up starving.  I ate a delicious breakfast of Cap'n Crunch from the hammock while swinging in the breeze.  Yes, Cap'n Crunch with Crunch Berries.  Of course.  Thank you for asking.  8:15 and I was on the trail.  I stopped at a little campsite up on a bluff and made a couple of sandwiches.  I played tag with 8OS and Stephan for awhile and ran into Simple-see, who took a ride up from Miguel, who is now known as Cat in the Hat.  Cat in the Hat drove back to Damascus and Simple-see was going to walk back.  I continued on, hiking down and down for miles and eventually came to a road crossing and a parking area that had a latrine.  I never miss a chance to use a pseudo-bathroom to reduce my impact on the forest.  8OS and Stephan caught up and we hiked up into Lewis Fork Wilderness.  I decided to check out Mt Rogers, allegedly the highest point in Virginia.  It was a mile and change out of my way and didn't have a view due to a restriction on clearing forest lands.  I ate lunch up there on a giant slab of dark grey granite with the geodetic marker embedded in it.  Some day hikers and their two dogs soon joined me.  They had some delicious-looking sandwiches but didn't offer me any.  Mmm, lettuce and whole grain bread.  They told me about feeding the ponies apples.  Sigh.  Apples.  It was torture.  I hiked back down to the Grayson Highlands and it was so beautiful.  The terrain was open with rolling hills of green grasses, big jutting piles of grey slabby boulders, huge blue skies, puffy white clouds and OMG! Ponies!  We all played a bunch.  I took several hundred photos.  There was a gorgeous surfer pony with a light tan hide and a long straight blond mane.  We became good friends as he was pretty ASSertive for a horsey.  I think he must have known about my mule heritage.  The Greyson Highlands are by far one the top spots so far.  If you are in the neighborhood, check it out.  I hiked on and my feet were really having trouble with the rocky trails.  The miles just weren't going by very fast.  I met up with Chupacabra and we hiked to the Scales, which were mile 500 for me.  Perhaps it was the side-trip up Rogers, maybe it was the rocky terrain, or quite possibly it could have been the ponies but it took all day to get halfway.  I was going to need to nighthike.  I made dinner around 7pm at the Old Orchard Shelter with Idon'tknow, Treefrog, CV, Justin, and GPS.  This was a cool crew and I was sad to leave them.  Idon'tknow packed in whiskey and Snickers and I could tell it was going to be a fun night.  I knew though if I didn't get moving, I would never make it to Partnership in time to meet up with my new hiking posse.  So I sauntered off into the fading light down a steep hill to darkness.  Cool night air invited my continued progress.  The bugs flew at my headlamp and I turned it sideways so I wouldn't see them coming.  At one point at the top of a hill, I turned off my light and stood in the darkness just listening to the quiet symphony of the night.  About a mile later, this huge animal ran down the hill from the trail out of view.  No more peering into the darkness for me.  I hiked to Hurricane and arrived just after 11pm.  There were some tenters down by the water and I hung up my hammock nearby on the blue blazed water trail.  I washed up in the creek, accidentally scared some huge spiders into doing wacky intimidation push-ups, and hit the hay for a few hours of shut-eye.