Date: 2016-04-12
From: The Barn Restaurant, VA 11

To: Chestnut Knob Shelter 
Miles today: 24.0
Weather: clear sky

It was nice to be in a bed. I savored the comfort and didnt get up til about 8. It's way easier to sleep in when the sunlight doesn't shine through the lack of a fourth wall in a shelter. I got all of my gear together. Offloading those boots was a big help; even with a bunch of food my pack still feels lighter than usual. I got everything together and was about to head out just before nine and very excitedly opened my door and found that it was pouring out. Back inside, to put on my raincoat and pack cover! Then I headed out. The rain let up pretty quickly, but it was a wet morning. I made my way under the interstate and began hiking through some lovely meadows. There were a few climbs involved, but nothing was crazy. Almost all the climbs are well-graded, and if they're not, they're short. Sometimes the trail follows a ridge and looks like it's about to climb up a steep pitch and veers away at the last moment and switchbacks up. These are all trail relocations. You can usually see where the AT used to go, straight up the ridges, and you can feel the change in terrain from rooty, rocky natural feeling trail to wide, well graded trail without a single obstacle. These reroutes have been very common in the last little bit. I was mostly alone all morning, but ran into a few hikers around noon, one of whom, Osgood, was mentioned in Northstar's journal from a few days ago. I was tailing a bunch of people I knew, and the thought of reaching them and saying hi egged me onwards today. The trail climbed down through some gorgeous pastures. I really like walking through these fields. It's freeing and gorgeous, and I like seeing all the little blaze-posts laid out in front of me. I climbed more stiles today than I have all trip, and they are of the ladder-on-both-sides variety, not easy to maneuver. There was a gorgeous bit when the trail made its way through two tiny lines of trees between two giant open fields. I made my way up and over a hill to Knot Maul Branch Shelter, where I knew I at least wanted to make it for the evening. Who should I find there but Chickenfoot! He keeps turning up places. He had laid out all - and I mean all - of his food on the picnic table and the shelter floor. Apparently he had packed too much and was trying to eat a bunch now so he didn't have to carry it. I wished him well and passed on. He's a bit crazy. I didn't want to stop at 14 miles, and the next shelter was nine and a half more. By it was only 2 and I felt pretty good so I moved on. I also am feeling more and more comfortable with late arrivals. There's no point just sitting around at a shelter starting at like 4:30 if I've still got gas in the tank. We'll see. I bet I can keep up 20 mile days through Virginia. A few bumps later, and I was beginning the ascent of Chestnut Knob, a ridge I had had in view all morning. It's the first really big ridge that the trail hops up on to and follows for a while, which will become a pattern soon and through southern Virginia. Chestnut Knob seems like one of the few climbs that they did not relocate. It was pretty darn steep in places. But nothing so far in VA has really compared to what I saw through the NC/TN border. Virginia isn't flat, so far, but it does have a larger percentage of flat miles between and during the climbs. About halfway up, who should I find sitting on a rock but Judge! He's been movin a little slower since Damascus but says he's ready to pick the pace back up. I wished him well and said I'll see him at the shelter. I topped out on the Chestnut Ridge, where the trail is a wide grassy path through the forest, and then gives way to real open meadow for a few miles. It was about 5:30 and the late afternoon sun made everything gold and gorgeous. The wind was low, and the hiking was spectacular. It was really quite a special moment for me, and one of the most gorgeous I've had on the trail. I felt more acutely than ever before the sheer expansiveness of America. Away to my south, the ridges I had just crossed in the morning extended for miles and miles in both directions, their folds and contours endlessly repeating away to infinity. And at their feet, the green pastures rolled away, the mountains like a brown snake laid on top of a green blanket. But I was ready to be done for the day. My legs were angry at me for pushing them so hard and I moved pretty slowly over the chill final miles to Chestnut Knob Shelter. I took quite a long break at a water source about two miles south of the shelter and are a candy bar to ease my fatigue, filled up from the slowest piped spring I've ever seen and saw Judge again. Soon enough i topped out along the ridge and found the shelter, a lovely stone cabin that used to be a fire warden's cabin but now has bunks and a picnic table in it. It was filled with familiar faces. First off were Crumbum and Doodle whom I left at Black Bear, Grandma and Bill Nye whom I met at Standing Bear, Lightning, whom I met on day 2 and never got his trail name, and then the couple with whom I talked at Springer mountain, who did the BMT instead of the AT until past the smokies. They picked up the names Audubon and Quixote. I've seen today four different people who all started the same day as I did! It's crazy! Quixote told me that she actually asked this morning "I wonder what happened to Ben from New Haven." Crazy coincidences! A peek in the log showed that Blaze was here on the 7th, DT, frost, rain man, polar bear and seal tree were all here on the 8th, magic, white rabbit and large here two nights ago and Mantis and Northstar here last night. Slug was here this afternoon! It promises to be a long time before this reunion with familiar faces is over. Slug texted me and says he's camping just a few miles down from the shelter on the ridge. Can't wait to see him again. We all cooked dinner and it was a party in the lovely cabin (where it became much warmer than outside as the temp dropped). The conversation, as usual, revolved around other hikers and prop on the trail whom we've met. We all went outside to watch the sunset. There's a great view on both sides of the shelter, down into the valley to the south and down into a giant bowl-shaped rock formation with farms in it called Burkes Garden to the Northeast. I'm sheltering for the night, and not sure what tomorrow will bring. More hiking I spose! It's been a pretty perfect first day back on the trail.