Date: 2017-05-13
From: Pass Mountain Hut

To: Front Royal Terrapin Station Hostel
Miles today: 22.7

5/13/17 Front Royal Terrapin Station Hostel, VAMiles hiked: 648.0 Miles to go: 1541.81st Sgt, Ramsey, and I shared the shelter with two Southbound section hikers last night. It was pouring the rain and there were no good hammock sites, so I opted to sleep in the shelter rather than hammock. Whenever I sleep in a shelter, I wear earplugs to block out the sounds of other hikers snoring. I had gotten my earplugs out of my toiletries bag before placing it in the bear bag with my food (it contains toothpaste, etc, so it gets bearbagged also). By the time I finished my blog, all the other shelter dwellers were asleep. Two of the dwellers turned out to be prodigious snorers, so I decided to put in my earplugs before I went to sleep. Unfortunately, when I reached in my pocket for my earplugs, I discovered that the shape of my dental floss container is remarkably similar to that of my earplugs case. Unfortunately, the shape of dental floss is nothing like that of earplugs. To make matters worse, the prodigious snorers appeared to be coordinating their efforts. When one stopped snoring, the other took up the task with great gusto. It turned out to be a long night. 1st Sgt and I awoke around 5:30 AM to a gray, blustery, dripping world. We packed up, ate breakfast, and were on the trail by 6:30 AM. Our destination was the Elkwallow Wayside, eight miles distant, where we planned to have second breakfast. The miles passed quickly and, by 9:15 AM, we were tucking into our hot breakfasts. We did make one small wrong turn on the way to the wayside that made us go approximately 0.6 miles out of our way and required us to crawl under a blown down tree (twice!). Oops. After second breakfast, we returned to the trail and were soon joined by another thru hiker whose trailname was Norm (inspired by the Cheers character). He started his thru hike on 3/31 (over a month after us!) and was averaging 25+ miles a day, including stops. He must have been feeling lonely today because he slowed down to hike with us for most of the day. He was a nice guy and it was fun to add a third voice to our conversation. While we were stopped along the Skyline Drive eating our lunch, several members of a local hiking club came along. They stopped to talk and spent the next 30 minutes asking us questions about thru hiking. We were the first thru hikers any of them had met and they had lots of questions. After a few more miles of blustery, damp hiking we finally arrived at the Terrapin Station Hostel. It is in the basement of a home owned by a 1995 thru hiker named Mike. With a name like Terrapin Station, it was a pretty easy leap of logic to determine that Mike is a Deadhead (he saw the Grateful Dead in concert 130 times!). After showering and washing our damp, smelly clothes, Mike shuttled me, 1st Sgt, Ramsey, and another thru hiker named Bluebell to the local grocery store for resupply. Afterwards, we hung out in the hostel gabbing until bedtime. Today was my longest day on trail - 22.7 trail miles. With the additional miles we walked on blue blaze trails (not to mention taking a wrong turn), we actually walked closer to 25 miles. Tomorrow, 1st Sgt and I will continue heading north while Ramsey takes a zero day to rest a sore ankle. We expect to be in Harpers Ferry next Tuesday. We are also expected to have good weather for the foreseeable future. Yay.