Date: 2016-06-08
From: Stealth campsite on Bush Mt.

To: Catawba Shelter
Miles today: 20.3
Weather: heavy intensity rain

Woke up today on the ridge line on bushy mountain and boy was it chilly with gusty winds. I got up and packed up as Ompi was already up. We both got on trail at 6:30 and left together. We were mostly up Brushy Mt and only had a short distance to go to the ridge line. There was a view point from the top which we didn't stay at for long as the winds were howling. The hike down bushy mt. seemed to take forever I mean forever. At the bottom we had to fill up on water as it was the only place for 10 miles. We pushed on making the climb up to dragons tooth. We met Jessie's Girl on the way up and she was the woman who I spent the night in the shelter with before Pearisburg. I finally got her trail name and she said Storm is this the guy you were trying to catch. The climb wasn't as bad as I thought it might be. Many switchbacks helped in that department. We skipped the shelter that was 1/2 mile off trail. We made it to Dragons tooth and it was a really neat rock formation. We had our lunch there and made the climb down which was a ledge scramble. There were even metal handles to assist. It was a really neat climb down. Some points were a little hairy and I was thankful not to be doing this in the rain. It was slow going but we finally arrived at VA 624. A .40 mile walk west on the road brought us to a gas station that had beer, ice cream, pizza, soda, chips. Ompi and I ran. There was a plug outside so we charged our electronics while we gorged ourselves. We met salsa outside who was also doing the same thing. She started on March 24th and has been taking her time and had a week off while the recovered from an injury. We were at the gas station for about an hour. We suited back up walking the .40 back to the trail. We had one climb immediately after leaving the road but with switchbacks it wasn't too bad. We then descended down and follows a creek for awhile then into fields for about 2 miles. We then climbed the end of the field sharply back into the woods where we made it to a ridge line and followed that for awhile. I was in the lead and a big gust of wind knocked over a dead tree across the trail a bit in front of me. Eeeek falling trees oh my! We descended down the ridge and arrived at US 311 where there was a big parking lot for Mcaffe Knob which was about 3.5 miles away. From this parking lot we had 2 miles to go before getting to Catawaba Mountain Shelter. The climb wasn't too bad until the very end when we just wanted to get there. We finally arrived at 8:30 and Jessie's girl was the only one at the shelter. I set up in the shelter and Ompi set up his hammock close by. We made dinner and are crashing. We are planning on getting up at 4am to watch the sun rise from Mcaffe Knob. To me Mcaffe Knob is the most pictured part of the AT in movies and on TV. I find it strange I will be getting to this big milestone for me on the one year anniversary of the passing of Al Cratty who was the original owner and carver of Smitty. Tomorrow I'm going to do a tribute for Al and hopefully get some great pictures. For now I gotta sleep if I'm getting up in 6 hours. Also tomorrow we make it to Troutville to catch up to the RC (Royal couple) which I haven't seen since Gaitlinburg.