Date: 2006-04-03
From: Wilson's Creek Shelter

To: Bobblet's Gap Shelter
Miles today: 7.3
Weather: overcast clouds

3 Apr 2006 - Destination: Bobblet's Gap Shelter (about 7.3 miles)It was a windy night with some rain. I got up around 07:00 at dawn. It was chilly, windy and rainy. I finished transcription by 07:45 and had a bag of gorp for breakfast. I will leave behind 6 packets of instant oatmeal as not used yet and small weight concession.NOTE: need to repair the belly pack, as a pencil came through it.NOTE: tomorrow look at different sleeping position, as rain does come in through the open front of a shelter.NOTE: my times are off by an hour - daylight savings time switched!I left Wilson's Creek Shelter about 09:00 wearing a triple layer of clothes on top (overshirt, silk shirt, and warm undershirt) along with the Orvis coat, gloves, red fleece pants under the Frogg Togg bottoms and the mud boots. I was also wearing the balacava. 09:15+/- I stopped to put the pack rain cover on, and get the hood out of the Orvis coat because it had started to rain. Kind of proud - I just did 450 continuous fairly steady steps (at about 1 mile per hour) without stopping!09:55+/- I needed to lighten up. Took off the balacava, opened up the overshirt and unbuttoned the silk shirt. Put the gloves into a pocket in the Orvis coat, which is now unzipped also. I've been climbing fairly steadily. My left knee feels a little weak. My current hiking process is to do 100 paces, stop for 25 deep breaths, 25 nose breaths, get a drink of water, optionally eat some gorp, and then walk on. Right now I am at a little tiny stone rivulet, which I am going to have to cross over. It's got a little bit of running water on it, not much. NOTE: have to be very careful where I step. These rocks are very very slippery and I don't want to twist or strain anything.10:45 - I note that I have extended my breaks to every 200 steps on downhills and levels and on uphills with less than about a 2% grade.11:03 - I take a gorp and water break. Gorp moved into belly pack as it seems to be jamming up the water bottle bag. The skies are grey and partly overcast with a very slight drizzle on occasion. The 100 step/200 step break seems to be working nicely, and I'm going to try and keep to it.12:00 - Pack off break for lunch, around 1/2 way or a little bit more to the Blue Ridge Parkway. I am soaked through and through. Even the Orvis coat (which is now off and lashed to the pack) is soaked. It looks like the sun is trying to break through. Beautiful views into the valleys. On the right is a valley full of fog surrounded by a couple of mountain tops, while on the left I see a couple of mountain ridges and the sun just breaking through on them, with white and bluish clouds. The black clouds seem to have gone away, and taken the stormy winds with them. It is now a very beautiful day and I just hope I can keep on going. I'm probably 2-3 miles from Black Horse Gap and around 5 miles from Bobblet's Gap Shelter.NOTE: On trail transcription stops here as batteries low and I do not have spares.After I finished lunch, I bag balmed my feet. Loaded up and started out again at 12:25, sort of dried off but still damp and while I am motionless, somewhat chilled (so I put the Orvis coat back on).13:05 - I just passed a sign that says this section of trail maintained by the Roanoke ATC. Still on a gentle uphill, and it is wearing. I keep wondering whether I'm crazy, or just insane, or both, but I seem to be getting places, and overall enjoying myself. Fifty more paces and I am at Black Horse Gap. Pack off break and clothing change, removing fleece lined pants and going to blue pants and dropping my coat. Walked up to the actual parkway and watched several cars go by.14:11 - I am at Taylor's Mountain Overlook on the parkway. Lost the ApTrail for a while but finally determined that it runs right on the parkway. I'm getting very tired, but it is absolutely beautiful now, with light clouds all over the place, the sun shining, azure backgound sky with sparrows and some other birds flying below me at the overlook. I'm sitting here, resting on one of the wooden posts right above the white slash that is on the car barrier. I am going to go back to the overlook and put the pack back on and continue, now that I've found the trail again. I had taken them off while I looked.14:38 - I really never did find the trail, just a few slashes on the wooden supports for the car barriers on the parkway, so I just kept walking down the parkway, knowing that Bobblet's Gap was on the parkway. Then I saw a white blaze on a tree about 15-20 feet off the parkway on the right hand side going north. So I trekked over to it, and low and behold, it's the trail. I have no idea where I lost the thing, but I continued to go on.15:01 - Time for a pack off break in the classic hiker repose style - pack against tree, hiker against pack, lying down on a rock, gorp, water, watching three hawks lazily circling the sky above me. I was just off the edge of the parkway watching the occasional car going by, the blue sky, the light, fluffy cotton clouds with the sun at 1:00 O'Clock, sort of coming in and out behind the clouds. I just came up a rather difficult ascent, which seemed to be fairly easy until I reached the top and it hit me, so I stopped.15:32 and I'm at the Montvale Overlook. Pack off break while I refill the water bottle. As long as I stay near the parkway I'm not to worried. The winds, however, are very definitely picking up and it feels very good, but they may get to be to fast later on.16:23 - I am on a well manicured wide dirt trail/road which proceeds along the side of the parkway some 10 feet below grade. There is lots of wind blowing in a band of rain clouds and storms. Slight drizzle but the rains are coming very quick. Up on the right, about 5 feet above the trail, is a large rock overhang over what appears to be two deep (around 10 feet) indentations with pure white very dry sand. This is in contrast to the damp, wet, dark sand, dirt, broken rotted wood, and a wet, somewhat flat rock with a 9" diameter puddle in a depression in it. The white sand implied that this did not leak. I tossed a couple of rocks into the cave to see if anything was in it, then when I had no response, I scrambled up to it, put the pack in under the rock lip toward the left, where the rain was not falling, pulled the thermarest out and laid it in the right hand indentation (which with 2.5 ft of headroom was about 1 foot wider than the left hand indentation.) I then put the waterproof pack cover on the pack, pulled the radio out, and laid back on the thermarest, without using a pillow. Wrapped in my clothes, and warm, I discovered I blocked so much of the light that I needed to get the headlamp out to tune the radio. Did that, listened to classical music (WVTF), nibbled on gorp, drank some water, Banged my head a couple of times on the 'roof', and went to sleep. When I woke up, I looked out. The rain had stopped according to the lack of drops in the puddle on the rock outside the cave mouth, with a beautiful rainbow, and the band of dark storm clouds in the distance against a mountain ridge. Fixed up the pack, slid down to the trail, getting a little muddy in the process, hoisted the pack and started walking. Guess this 'break' was about an hour. I have not seen any such cave so far on the trip, and it's coincidental appearance when I needed it is perhaps a good omen? At least I felt it to be one. I left the cave shelter after the rain stopped and resumed walking down the trail/road. Soon the road turned back into being a trail, and there was this great big greenish, moss covered wall with large, rectanular blocks. Looks almost hand hewn. It is a supporting wall for the BRP on the left side of the BRP, and on my right, going north. I hope to get to Bobblet's Gap Shelter before dark.21:00+/- 18465 - I got to the Bobblet's Gap Shelter just after dusk. The winds are howling like they want to blow the mountains away. and there are several people in the shelter and several tents set up. Everybody has turned in, but there was sufficient space for me on the left side (if you were facing the shelter). There is a small glow on the fire and a slight drizzle.later, at night: The wind is blowing up through the floorboard slats at better than 15 mph and it is truly howling outside. I can feel the pressure of the wind, but because I put the silnylon ground sheet underneath my sleeping bag, I am not actually getting any real wind effects directly. That is not the case for the rest of the people in the shelter. It sounds like the weather in an Edgar Allan Poe horror story. Howl may not be a strong enough word for it.Tyler Micikeff(?), who was sleeping next to me, and I talked for some time in the shelter while the winds howled. He is one of the "counselors" for the group currently encamped (I later learned they are from the Elks Boys Home in Richmond, which is a shelter and protected environment for some teens who have been very badly abused by their parents/guardians or the system.) They do this regularly for these kids, to help to get them some positive experiences away from what has often been horrendous city life. Tyler told me that there is a spring about 50 feet down, but the water is not very clean. They use iodine to make their water drinkable. I will probably get four to six liters of water in the morning before I leave, most likely six, given the lack of available water resources before the next shelter.This shelter is a basic six person shelter