Date: 2016-04-20
From: Four Pines Hostel 

To: Lambert Meadow Shelter
Miles today: 16.4
Weather: clear sky

The Shenandoahs are on fire, apparently. The news broke last night that forest fires have shut down part of the national park in the very southern section, including fourteen miles of Skyline Drive and four miles of the AT. I'm hoping that all of it will pass will rain forecasted soon and with more than a week before I get there.Despite an ongoing battle with Patchy about whether the fan would be on or off, I slept very nicely on one of the couches that Joe has set up in the big garage-turned-hostel. I woke up to the smell of breakfast being prepared and was quickly handed two banana pancakes from Quixote. Amazing. My laundry was done and everything was ready. Lightning and I headed out slightly earlier than usual, and made our way over back to the trail and up and over a small first climb and descent before beginning the push up to the ridge where we'd spend the rest of the day. The hiking became much more difficult over the rolling ridge. We passed a very large group of old women hiking along the trail. Eventually we hit VA 311, where the day hiking trail to McAfee Knob begins, and the trail improved dramatically. It became a "stroll in the park," as Lightning said, for four miles and we climbed evenly up to the famous overlook. Wow. The view is as spectacular as I imagined and more. Despite being very shallowly rising on the south side, the north side of the Knob falls away in cliffs and steeply, leaving a huge set of ledges with panoramic views into the valley below and the ridges beyond. The day was clear and perfect, and we could see the ridge we'd climb this afternoon and tomorrow into Daleville, as well as the first mountains outside of town, and away to the Blue Ridge. And who should I find up there but Hootie and Seeker! Seeker has been renamed Seaweed after he met another Seeker and his buddy Golden Snitch had to return home. They both seem to be doing well in their own right, though, and were planning for the big day into Daleville today. We, on the other hand, only had 6.5 miles left in our day and it was about 12. So we decided to chill. And chill we did, taking pictures, eating lunch and sunbathing with everybody else from Four Pines who made it up to the Knob. We stayed for over an hour there, and had a grand ole time. Quixote, Audubon, Lightning and I all got a selfie together. Eventually, after most other folks left, we decided we should push on. After a short talk with Gunslinged, a former thru hiker who has apparently spent the last two weeks just hiking back and forth between the Tinker Cliffs and 311, we headed back down to the ridge that would take us on. The trail was often quite hard to follow, and i got lost around one rocky outcropping and had to backtrack. Lightning, who had fallen behind, made the same mistake I did and we fell back in together as we finished off the steep and leaf-covered (frustrating) climbing to the Tinker Cliffs. The Tinker Cliffs view lacks the dramatic overhang, but it may even be better than McAfee Knob. Something about the way the ridge to the Knob snakes away into the distance, and the perfect offsetting of the pastoral fields and the huge mountains below, the fact that the sprawl of Roanoke is hidden, and the lovely hazy dying light of the afternoon, made it the perfect view. I told Lightning that the view made me feel more profoundly American and patriotic than I had in a long time, and he laughed at me. But seriously. This may be the first view that benefits from the human footprint on the landscape. I was reminded of a quotation from LBJ's inaugural that I've always wanted reaf by Sam Elliott: "For this is what America is all about. It is the uncrossed desert and the unclimbed ridge. It is the star that is not reached and the harvest that is sleeping in the unplowed ground. Is our world gone? We say farewell. Is a new world coming? We welcome it, and we will bend it to the hopes of man."We toyed with staying for sunset before deciding to just head down to the shelter and be with the gang. After one mixup in which we followed the old AT and skipped a switchback, and I decided to backtrack and Lightning didn't, we were down at the shelter. Palindrome and Rabbit were already here, as were Quixote and Audubon. Cabot and Hobbes rolled up later, as did 76, Brightside, and a flip flopper named Bald Whistler, or BW for short. Lightning decided to make himself the challenge of trying every flavor of pop tarts during his time on the trail, and we had a great evening. Tomorrow into Daleville for lunch and resupply, then back out for the last night before I get picked up by my dad and brother for three days of a comfy bed to come back to every night!