Date: 2015-05-06
From: Skyland

To: Big Meadows
Miles today: 8.8
Weather: light rain

We followed through with yesterday's plan, and I added another day of rest to my convalescence while Princess hiked from here at Skyland south to Big Meadows where she finished up yesterday.The weather today was similar to yesterday, starting off cool around 50 at daybreak, warming up quickly in the morning to 80+, then clouds built up in the afternoon leading to showers and thunderstorms later in the day. This afternoon it rained several times and thunder is rumbling around now after sundown. Princess left early, hopped on the trail where it passes through Skyland and hiked the relatively short distance down to Big Meadows quickly, arriving well before noon and before any threat of rain. The first half of her route today had only smaller ups and downs, while the second half had a long gradual downhill from the Hawksbill Mountain area down past the Rock Spring Hut to Franklin Cliffs and Fisher Gap, then an gradual uphill to the Big Meadows complex. She said she met a lot of hikers along the way. She saw Giuseppe early, not far from Skyland, and I saw him a little later having breakfast in the Skyland lodge. I talked with him briefly and learned that he plans to do the PCT next year. Princess also expects to do it with a former colleague and possibly an AT hiker we met on the trail last year. A lot of people were coming out of Rock Spring Hut, both thru-hikers and section or day hikers, and they said it had been full overnight. She took a few photos at the overlooks along the route in the Hawksbill area and later Franklin cliffs. She also took several shots of a rocky area that looks similar to what William from Raleigh, NC described as a talus slope in our guest book several days ago. William's explanations of some of the geologic features we've observed along the trail have been interesting. The Big Meadows area on Skyline Drive where Princess finished today is a large area with campgrounds, cabins, a lodge, a wayside and other associated facilities. A year and a half ago when we were preparing for the AT, we camped there and tried out the trails. Coming in from the north (as Princess was) the trail circles around west of most of the major facilities. She went past the campsites first, then past the lodge and finally passed the gravel toad to the wayside and the visitor center that are almost a half mile from the trail. The wayside includes a restaurant, gift shop, and a well-stocked supply store for campers, hikers and other visitors. Princess said she saw a large number of bicyclists around the wayside, and she saw two hikers she just met on the trail yesterday, Pa Viking and Larry (NTN). They're from Illinois and relatively new to hiking. Larry plans to spend 2 weeks on the trail up to Harpers Ferry, while Pa is out for 4 weeks. They both had a lot of questions about hiking gear. She also saw Maverick at the wayside.She planned to do laundry at the facilities and she hiked with our dirty clothes, soap, etc., Skyland doesn't have laundry service available. But when she got there, she found that the laundry was being refurbished and not available - as well as some of the other facilities. It seems to us that it would make sense to schedule work on the facilities during the off season when the park is closed, but what do we know?So she hiked back to the restaurant and had lunch (fried chicken and beer) while she waited on her ride. Since Ranger and Gay are driving up from Georgia to visit and spend a couple of days at Skyland, she arranged for them to stop by Big Meadows and pick her up on the way. The plan worked and they all pulled in to Skyland in the early afternoon. We had a pleasant afternoon visiting with them and then had drinks and dinner at the Skyland Lodge. I'm going to take one more rest day tomorrow (the last I hope) and I'm going to shuttle Ranger and Princess as they hike a section of trail north from Skyland. They plan to go from here to the Elkwallow wayside, where I'll pick them up and bring them back for one more night here at Skyland. The we'll pull up stakes and head on north from here.