Date: 2005-06-01
From: Loft Mountain Campground

To: South River Road
Miles today: 21.0

Shenandoah is easier walking, comparitively, than anything we have done up until here, but it's not flat. Today we went up 800 feet in one section, and everything else was pretty much rolling. There's alot of uphills and downhills, but they are all shallow grades. Nothing too steep, but far from flat. We stopped alot of times today. We stopped 3 times to cook, and took long breaks each time. It was a very casual walk each time. It was a very casual walk most of the time. The first one was at the Pinefield Hut. We cooked there and hung out for an hour. There are no more shelters now in Shenandoah, they call them 'huts'. After Pinefield Hut, we walked another 7 miles to Hightop Hut and sat there and cooked and ate. We then walked to the South River Campgrounds, 6 miles away, sat at a picnic table by the bathrooms and got some water and cooked again. I think that's a record, to cook 3 times in 1 day. Each time we ran into a gentleman named Graveyard, who is also hiking the AT. We sat around and talked to him for a while. At South River Campgrounds, we considered camping at the campgrounds themselves. It's a very wide opened mound of grass with picnic tables and barbeque pits and bathrooms. Of course, you're not allowed to actually camp there, you have to be 1/4 miles away from any campground, but we talked alot about it and decided that we didn't want to take a chance getting caught by a ranger with a flashlight. Easy Goer has already been busted once in these parts for camping in the wrong place. He was a little nervous about it, so, after we ate there, we packed up and got back on the Trail until we could find a flat spot. That was about another 1/2 mile or so down the Trail. It's actually a fire trail. They elected to camp in the weeds right next to the fire trail. I set my tent up right in the middle of the road. That's where I am right now.I called Mark and Jan, Mark called me back and I told him to meet us Saturday at Gravel Springs Hut. He and Jan want to come up and spend an evening with us at a shelter. That one is only 2/10 of a mile off the Trail. It's going to work out good that way because OC1's family also wants to come see him Saturday. We have arranged it so that we know we will definitely be there because it's short milage. In fact, we are slowing down for the next several days. Tomorrow we will only do 14 miles. We are 5 miles away from Lewis Mountain Campground, that one has a store. We are going to stop there and eat breakfast and walk an additional distance over to Big Meadows Wayside. We will probably just hang around there for a few hours tomorrow. We'll try to take showers, do laundry, eat a couple of times, and take a casual stroll out of there. The next day we do 18 miles to the following shelter. That leaves us 12 miles to go to Gravel Springs Hut. We should get there early in the afternoon. Hopefully we will have met up with Mark and Jan by then. Mark is actually considering finding where we will cross the road on Skyline Drive, 10 miles back, and hike with us for 10 miles. When we got here tonight and set up our tents, we sat around my tent for awhile. We talked about how nice it is to be so close to the middle point of the Trail. We made plans for the next few weeks. We sat with the books and figured out what we were doing. We had to move our maildrops from Linden, Virginia. We would be hitting there on Saturday at best. Instead, we had them moved to Harper's Ferry. We think we will be hitting there by Wednesday morning. Mark Z's house is 10 miles before Harper's Ferry. Mark and Jan spoke to him and he wants us to call and maybe stop by. I don't know if that's going to be acceptable because I have 2 guys with me. I'll call him tomorrow and find out. It's been a long time since we have done anything under 20 miles, it's time to slow down a little bit and get in all those visits from our friends and relax. We have to get ready for that long stretch of 100 miles going out of Harper's Ferry to Boiling Springs and OC1's house. We expect to get there about the 14th, which will work out well for him. It's 8:45. There's about an inch of rain expected for toonight. It might be a little scary of the fire road. Hopefully we won't flood out tonight.