Date: 2009-05-25
From: Wise Shelter

To: VA Highway 603 
Miles today: 7.6

It rained all last night, so our wet clothes didn't have a chance to dry out. There's nothing like putting on filthy dirty, soaking wet clothes first thing in the morning, and hoping your body heat warms the clothes up. We didn't get out until 8:30, which is particularly late for Moonlight and I; but neither of us wanted to get up this morning. We both stayed in the shelter last night, and it was pretty clean and new. We started off but my leg still bothered me. I can walk on level ground, and can do pretty good on uphill inclines, but downhills and climbing over rocks is a problem. The anti-inflamatory medication the doctor gave me in Abington has yet to kick in, which is disappointing. Anyhow, the 5.9 walk to the next shelter seemed to take forever. We didn't get there until noon. When we did make it there, we ran into a group of section hikers from Winston-Salem, NC and a Park Service Ridge Runner. The Ridge Runners are the hall monitors of the AT, trying to get people to behave and follow the rules, packing out as much trash as they can, and inparting useful information. In our case, the Ridge Runner gave us great information. We had been planning on hiking another 11 miles to Dickey Gap, where we would then try to hitch 3 miles to the church hostel in Troutdale. But the Ridge Runner said we could get to Troutdale by walking to a road only 2 1/2 miles further down the trail. Moreover, the section hikers were getting ready to head home, and offered us a ride to Troutdale if we couldn't catch another ride. After making it to the road in good time, we tried hitching for 15 minutes. By then, the section hikers had come and we got a ride into town with them. So by 3:00, we were at the hostel, taking showers, and planning for a real meal at Jerry's Diner.Jerry's Diner is a great place, with good food and a computer that I am presently using. Half the crowd are hikers, and the other half are locals working on their fourth cup of coffee for the day. Jerry doesn't mind hikers just hanging out, and he will offer a ride back to the trailhead if he's not too busy. I had a salad for luch and a slab of ribs for dinner. Thank you Jerry and Mrs. Jerry (the chef).The hostel is provided by the local Baptist church, and is clean and open to all hikers. At the present time, there are a couple hikers that are, how shall I say, a bit out of the ordinary. There's one guy who has a laptop that who's constantly playing with. He carries a hand-made bow and arrow, which seems really, really strange, and wears jeans, which is a definite no-no which hiking (jeans will not dry and are way to heavy). He plays very wierd, vulgar and angry music on it, and has a couple videos that he keeps playing that are consiracy theory, the CIA perpetrated 9/11, type of nonsense. Having some personal knowledge of 9/11 from previous employment, and knowing these conspiracy wacos are obscenely and insultingly wrong and believing this crap mocks good and honorable people, I finally lost my temper and had some words with them when they wouldn't shut up by midnight. There were other folks at the hostel who were much more pleasant to talk to. Scarecrow, whom we met yesterday, was there trying to recover from a chest cold. Houdini and her hiking partner Magnum shared a room with Moonlight and I. Houdini is a young, very bright young woman who works at a REI store in North Carolina. She carries the same pack I do and had good thoughts on making repairs, particularly to the piece that popped off day before yesterday. Magnum is from Texas and was particulalry short tempered with the guys who wouldn't shut up last night. Tonight, we've made the decision that we will have a light day tomorrow, hiking only 8 1/2 miles in hopes that my leg will improve. We've also made the decision to slackpack, leaving our packs at the hostel and coming back here for another night inside. This is the first slackpack effort after 500+ miles of carrying a pack.