Date: 2016-04-05
From: Hurricane Mountain Shelter 

To: Partnership Shelter 
Miles today: 19.1
Weather: overcast clouds

I woke up last night sweating, which was frankly a nice surprise given how cold I was expecting to be. I took off my raincoat to cool down, which turned out to be a bad decision. When the morning came, it was the coldest I've had yet on the trail, probably no more than about 20 degrees. I was still very cold in my bag. Blaze had apparently gotten up and left around 6:30, but Polar Bear, Babbit and I didn't start moving til about 8, when the light finally made us venture out into the frigid, windy morning. The trip to the privy was an adventure, and packing was slow as I kept taking off and putting on my gloves to accomplish tasks. For the first time this trip, I was the last one out of camp. I was wearing gloves, two hats, leggings, rain pants, two shirts and my coat as I headed out from camp. My boots felt like bricks on my feet. I got warmer as I started moving. The hiking was very easy all day, just a few gentle or short steep climbs and lots of extremely shallow rises and falls. I leapfrogged with the other two as we respectively took off and put on pieces of clothing as the day warmed, the wind picked up or the sun came out or went away. The trail passed by a lovely waterfall at Comers Creek. I stopped in at Trimpi Shelter for lunch at about noon. It's a big stone shelter with two shelves of beds for two people on each side and then an upper shelf for one on each side. It's strange looking but was nice to see. Polar Bear came by near the end of my lunch and made his. As I headed down to the next road, I passed Babbit, who was sure there would be trail magic at the road crossing. He was disappointed when there was none (and even more so when we heard trail magic arrived there just after we passed!). The trail started over a long set of ridges with views down into the sea of verdant green pastures to the southeast. I saw a number of deer over the course of the day, and yesterday, too. They must be much more common in VA. I passed a set of Sobo flip floppers who were slack packing the day, including a very excited girl named Greyhound, and (either her father or her uncle) whose name is Chopper. The last miles to tonight's destination were through a real green rhododendron tunnel. A very determined-looking man in sunglasses with a big beard passed by and said hello. Soon enough I was at Partnership Shelter! It's a huge structure, with space for about ten on the ground floor and a large loft with closable windows where I'm spending the night. Blaze left a note here that said he just stopped in for lunch. He was so excited about pizza yesterday, I'm not sure what happened. He changes his mind a lot, apparently. I sat for a little and then pushed on to the Visitor Center a few hundred yards away. I felt like a fish out of water stepping into the very clean atmosphere of the Mt. Rogers Visitors Center, but the lady working there ushered me in, and I bought a dr. Pepper and a kit kat, which I took outside to eat. It was already getting cold again, and I put on my second shirt and coat. Polar Bear showed up soon. He told me that the bearded man I just passed was the Real Hiking Viking, who began a his winter south bound thru hike at Karahdin on the first of January, and just passed the 3/4 mark today. It's apparently the first winter sobo thru hike ever, and it's only gonna take him 4 months! Polar Bear got a picture with him. We together perused the menu of Pizza Perfect, the restaurant in Marion that does a booming business delivering multiple hundreds of dollars worth of food a night to the visitor center. I had dinner enough for tonight, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to get pizza delivered to my doorstep. We both settled on Barbecue Chicken Pizza and hot wings. Babbit showed up soon after and we all ordered together. The food was coming in 45 minutes, faster than I was expecting for a place ten miles away down from the mountains. We all went and set up our gear in the loft of the shelter before returning to the road to wait for the delivery man. Seal Tree arrived shortly after, as did Doctor Trails. They both spent last night at Old Orchard Shelter, four miles back from where I started. They expected Frost and Rain Man would be here soon, which they were! We picked up our food from the very friendly delivery man and headed back to the shelter and began to gorge ourselves. Babbit had bought a 2 liter bottle of Pepsi to share, and we all decided to share a fried dough sort of dessert called Zabola. Seal Tree looked on jealously as he waited for his food, as did Frost and Rain Man, who had just ordered. I finished six slices of my huge pizza and about 15 wings and hit a brick wall and had to stop. There was a lot of silence of waiting for food coma to pass. Babbit absolutely destroyed his food. Dr. Trails ordered way too much on purpose, and I believe he'll be carrying a lot of cheesy bread for the next couple of days. Rain Man started up a fire, which became the focus of the evening's activity. We all sat around the fire making jokes and telling stories about other hikers, which have become the topic of most of the conversations recently. Among the most talked about were Noodles, the brother of Dream On, who is hostel-hopping in Damascus while waiting for his brother and also hitching around the United States and Highland Dave, whom I met at Greasy Creek, who apparently walked from Atlanta to Springer as the start of his journey. I got ready for bed and turned in a little before most of the others to give myself time to journal. So tomorrow I'll make the 12 mile journey over a few hills to Atkins, where I hope I'll find Martha waiting to drive me to the airport! It's kinda crazy to suddenly be stepping away after a month of the hiking lifestyle, but I'm ready for a break, and incredibly excited to see Ali, my family and my friends. I hope I catch up to these folks again, though, especially Frost and Rain Man. They are my kind of people and seem to be pushing my kind of miles. Thru hikers will tell you that Virginia is flat, or that it's not flat and don't underestimate it. It was pretty flat today. When I come back, I'll be looking to push bigger miles, and having some company through those flattish weeks is going to be key to my morale and experience.