Date: 2008-10-09
From: Virginia Creeper Trail

To: Damascus
Miles today: 13.7
Weather: overcast clouds

A borrowing from the blog of my brotherI am pleased to present the following two guest entries by Shreddy Balthazzar, an excerpt from his piece entitled ¢Four days and Sixty-four miles in Virginia¢:Wednesday: I wake up to a cold, damp tent. My warm breath had sprinkled the tent with drops of water. I crawl outside; Another late morning. It's very cold After we shake off our showered tents we eat another breakfast of coconut granola. Good lord I loathe this stuff. It makes me feel ill. I eat a tiny share of it. We pack up and leave. The clouds that moved in the previous night still sat dead on top of us. Fog seems to kill everything, but the environment we were in was so peculiar that the fog made everything beautiful in an enchanting way. My sister claimed that she had heard galloping outside our tents in the night. It's not long until we stumble upon ponies. Wild ponies. The walk-up-to-you-and-sniff-your-fingers-wondering-if-you're-going-to-fee-them-apples kind of ponies. Beware the savage pony and their big, precious eyes. Use caution around these ponies, as they could decide to look precious and follow you down the trail in a most humble manner. They stopped following us when we reached a rocky portion of the trail. Yet, they were replaced with many more ponies scattered throughout the length of the trail. We gave them stupid, clich© pony names like: Butterscotch, Chocolate, Mist, and Spot. The morning was delightful, despite the endless grey of the never ending fog. For the most part I enjoyed, and even loved the fog. It was cool and sweet to the taste. I didn't mind its dampness and I've had experience with it before on my lone Table Rock outing. After all, this time I was wearing a rainjacket. I remained dry. My pack was not dry. I had no rain cover for my pack, and the trash bag I had brought for this job was put to use protecting my sleeping bag which had to be ghetto stuffed inside my pack as it was too big. It wasn't raining, but the fog and the dripping leaves of trees soaked my pack very quickly. And then, as we dropped lower in altitude, it began to rain. Endlessly. I remember crossing cow fields, looking around and seeing nothing but short grass and a white, smoky curtain of moisture. And of course, the rain. Then at an area that resembled the Virginia Highlands we had spent so much time in, except lower in elevation, the wind began. It was the equivalent of riding a roller coaster in the rain, but the wind blew in side ways. Shivering winds and pelting rains nearly knocked us over sideways as we try to escape through fields. Trees became shelter at this point, but things seemed to warm up whenever we weren't being obliterated by powerful winds. I realized I had my hiking fever. It's a dangerous, yet addictive state I've learned to recognize from my many hiking adventures. Despite the now heavier pack (thanks to all the rain water), all the rough terrain, and the many, many miles I had hiked, my strength was near endless and I was sweating in the freezing cold. Hiking fever makes me near indomitable to nearly everything. There's no slope too steep and no terrain too treacherous. The freezing cold is actually my ally in cooling my body temperature. But the fever is dangerous because it's very similar to a real fever. If I stop moving for even a moment, it could be possible that I might freeze to death. On each of our breaks, I noticed it was difficult to walk once we resumed. With time the freezing winds stop, the fog lifts and we can see. All that's left is soggy trees and misting rain. Everything in my pack is drenched. My second pair of wool socks are now worthless as I did not protect them, and as my hiking fever wears off I notice an abundance of painful aches coming from my toes. I have blisters. At some point in the afternoon, my sister protests going any further. She's tired. I wanted to cover as much terrain as possible while my fever still persisted and her husband wanted to sleep inside a shelter, but her insistence wins. We setup in a "stealth" camping spot. We're right next to a stream so water is in ample supply. As my sister prepares dinner we decide it'd actually be a wonderful thing if we can get a fire going. Hank tries to remember as much as possible from his boy scout days and I gather wood based on his notions. It takes tons of toilet paper and lots of stripping of bark, but we actually get a fire burning! A really puny fire. But it does indeed burn on it's own! Large logs proved to have too much moisture and simply smoldered. We eat tasteless couscous and finish off the last of my pecan twirls. We actually stay up relatively late, talking about various things. I try to get a good ghost story session started, but my sister is scared of being scared. It's been hours since my hiking fever has passed, and I can actually feel the pain and exhaustion of today's terrible hike. My wet sleeping bag (the trash bag failed to do it's job) is ice cold when I crawl into it. Although it warms up nicely in about 30 minutes. I sleep moderately.Thursday: The last day of the trail. It doesn't matter that when I wake up I realize just how wet everything I have really is. It doesn't matter that I still have 13 miles to go. It doesn't matter how terribly everything is packed. It doesn't matter how much my blistered feet hurt. It doesn't matter what I have for breakfast. Today is the last day in the mountains, and tonight we sleep in a hotel and eat pizza. My sister and her husband's mantra for days like today is "Hike faster. Eat pizza." It's not raining today, but the sky is still grey. A brutal upward slope is followed up by dispicably rocky trail. My sister is pleased we camped when we did; these miles would've killed us otherwise. Later in the day the sun peaks through the clouds on occasion. I have real problems with my feet. The blisters are horrendous. I'm issued a "Scooby Snack" by my comrades (Ibuprofen) to keep me going. After a while the ache does die down, I assume it's either the drugs or hiking adrenaline. I can't tell, I'm just tired and my feet hurt. Discussion reveals that part of my problem, was not just the rain, but my hiking boots are likely at their life's end. That and I didn't have dry socks. So apparently there are lots of reasons why I now have 10 blisters on my feet. It doesn't matter. Hike faster; Eat Pizza. The trail has us cross over a highway, then we find ourselves on the Virginia Creeper. The Virginia Creeper we had actually hiked .. and takes us to the same destination covering no elevation, is a beautiful section of trail, is 1 mile shorter, and is NOT considered part of the Appalachian trail. The AT insists you go up the mountain instead of enjoying a leisurely hike next to a stream. But oh well. A couple of minutes down the trail we reach a sign saying "Welcome to Damascus". The trail is over, we have reached our destination. I swing by a gas station and buy the most delicious Gatorade I've ever had. A little more walking and we reach the place where I had stowed my car. My sister and her husband buy some new gear at the outfitters, I buy a hiking shirt as I don't have any non-cotton shirts. We get advice for a pizza parlor from a local (we think it's a hiking celebrity known as LoneWolf) and drive off to eat some of the best pizza I think I've ever had. We get a room at a Holiday Inn Express. We buy more pizza, beer, food, we shower, we tend our wounded feet, we reorganize all our gear, we dry things off that need drying, we do laundry, we watch tv, we sleep, we rest, we end our 4 day excursion of 64 miles. Well, I do - they gotta keep hiking.