Date: 2005-06-24
From: Maupin Field Shelter

To: YMCA, Waynesboro, VA
Miles today: 21.1
Weather: few clouds

Everyone left out early today, except for me - big surprise. I hiked up to Cedar Cliffs and hung out there for a while. When I got to the Blue Ridge Parkway, I saw Vermont hitching a ride into Waynesboro. He told me Dandy was just ahead and that he had a message for me. In his British accent he said, "I'll meet you at [some funny named ridge]." Hmm... I have no idea what that means because we do not cross a ridge today. Oh well. I crossed the road and headed back into the woods. It wasn't too long before I ran into Dandy asking me if I got his message. I relayed what Vermont said and Dandy was as confused as I was. The actual message goes as follows: "I'll meet you at Humpback Mountain and we'll go to Mothington." Close enough. ;-) We eventually made it to Humpback Mountain after thinking we had already passed it. Humpback Rocks were to the left. We hiked a few feet and the trail took a sharp drop. We were pretty tired at this point and had no idea how long the trail was so we said "screw it" and turned around. Some day hikers were heading down the trail to the Rocks. When we asked them how far down it was they looked at us like we were crazy and one of the guys asked "didn't you just come from there?" After we explained that we only began to walk down it he said it wasn't far at all and well worth it. So we followed them down and came to a giant protrusion off the side of the mountain. It was fun to climb and had amazing views! Well worth it. We continued on our way. I had no water and the trail was all rerouted passing by not a single water source. Dandy had heard Good Ol' Boy and Sloppy were just behind us and were going to head to the next shelter. He was so excited about seeing them. I had never hiked with them (I had only met them at Trail Days), but his excitement certainly transferred over to me. They ended up coming up behind us, along with Graceful, just before we reached the shelter. We all hiked down there in a train while everyone caught up with each other. They said they were going to hike into Waynesboro tonight and got Dandy and I psyched about doing the extra miles. Paul C. Wolfe Shelter is awesome! It has a huge deck and a creek that runs in front of it. After dinner we had a huge discussion on whether to continue on or not. The girls decided to stay because it was already dark, so the boys put the pressure on me to decide (since apparently I never make my own decisions). Up for an adventure, as usual, I said, "Let's do it!" It was 9:30PM and we headed out. I love night hiking, so this was going to be exciting. We hiked by an old cemetery and ruins of an old cabin - a reportedly haunted portion of the trail. We missed it all, of course, since it was pitch black outside. We didn't get to Rockfish Gap until 12:30AM! It was almost five miles down the highway into Waynesboro and we hiked all but the last mile. Who's going to pick up a bunch of hikers at one in the morning? No one! Finally a truck pulled up around 2am and dropped us off at a 24-hour gas station. We filled up on chips and soda and headed to the YMCA where they offered free camping to thru-hikers. At 2:30 in the morning we finally arrived and set up camp. It was a very long, yet exciting day.