Date: 2013-05-04
From: Laurel Creek Shelter 

To: Audie Murphy Monument 
Miles today: 17.5

Today I got up at 5:30 and was the first hiker to break camp at 7:00. Today there were a lot of pleasant sights. It was very picturesque going through the farm pastures, with lots of green rolling hills with farm houses seen off on hillsides. Today I saw strange cobweb things hanging on a lot of trees. I found out from a southbound hiker from Indiana that those things were called Bag Worms, which is exactly what they were: cobweb bags with worms inside. He said they eventually take over the whole tree killing it if you don't spray them. Then I walked by the Keiffer Oak tree. It is the largest oak on the AT in south, with it being over 300 yearns old and with a girth of over 18 ft. It was pretty magnificent. Then we climbed up onto a ridge where the wind was chilly and I had to don my shirt. For most of the walk up there, it was a nice dirt trail. In fact big piles of rock were along beside the trail. According to some trail maintenance guys they didn't do it. They thought it was either piled by farmers from long ago or by Civil War troops making fortifications to fight from. The last third of the ridge was along slanted granite rocks. My boots held real well making those traverses with lots of scary heights to deal with. Then the ridge ended and the trail went downhill to a river in which a shelter sat beside. I ate lunch there with Sherpa. Then the trail crossed the river and lots of feeder streams and then it went uphill to another ridge that has the Audie Murphy Monument on it. It was a pretty steep climb that took me along time because I took 3 breaks going up it. This part of the trail was beautifully maintained. It was mostly pine straw or dirt. Finally after an hour and a half I reached the top and sat on the bench that was there. After another .8 mile walk along the ridge I came to the monument and took a picture of it. This was my day's planned tenting stop but it was too windy and cold. So I decided to start walking down the other side and see if I could find a spot to tent out of the wind. As I walked some south bounders came by. The woman looked familiar and she said ¢Hey Pilgrim remember me?¢ I knew I knew her but couldn't place her. She told me she was Madison. And then it all came back to me. I had met her in the Smokies. She got behind Trekker and me and got caught in a winter storm that closed the road from Gatlinburg. Some rangers had helped her off the mountain. She was one of those people that skipped to Erwin. She said she had had to get off the trail for a wedding. Now she was back on, working south bound from Waynesboro to Gatlinburg ( I think she will shuttle around the section after Hot Springs that she already did). Then her friends will drive her back to Waynesboro where she will continue to Harpers Ferry where she has to leave for another wedding. At which point she will hop to Katahdin and hike south seeing us all again as we cross paths. She wanted to thank whoever posted for to hikers to see that Tracey McG had also gotten out ok from Clingmans. I told her it was probably Trekker who had done that service for her. I continued on after we took photos of each other. It was starting to get dark and I found a camp site a little ways down from the top of the ridge.