Date: 2017-06-17
From: Stealth Campsite

To: Sarver Hollow 
Miles today: 18.9
Weather: light rain

Day 46Saturday, June 167 2017 Stealth Campsite (660.4) to Stealth Campsite by Sarver Hollow Shelter (679.3)Miles: 18.9 in 11 hours with one break (not including the hour rainstorm coffee break)2017 AT trip miles: 679.3Total AT miles to date: 1968.8Weather: Partly sunny, hot, humid, afternoon thunderstormsDinner: One Pot Chicken PastaHikers: Cindy Lou Who, Hendricks, Autumn Leaf and Wombat, Pearl, Great Lake, Storm, plus about another half dozen hikers waiting out the afternoon thunderstorm Wildlife: DeerTurns out another half dozen people passed by my tent in the dark last night. Autumn Leaf and Wombat would have stayed here too, if there had been room. They told me that Grade School had just passed me, so that was the first person I heard. Awoke once to softly falling rain and made sure everything was batten down. Otherwise I slept like the rocks that are surrounding me. Caught up to Grade School at the Wind Rocks view and campsite, my original goal. I might not have done 20 miles yesterday after all. It took a while to get to the view, which theoretically should have been only 2.5 miles or about an hour away. Took a half hour longer, but of course, there was still an obstacle course of rocks to still hike over first. I surprised a deer that snorted at me. Or maybe, it too, was miffed about the rocks. The hot spots on my feet didn't hurt as much as I had expected. I duct taped every left toe and two on my right foot, plus put on a pair of clean dry socks. My shoes were still damp, but they dried out as I hiked¢that is until this afternoon. Another thunderstorm rolled through. This is beginning to be a pattern. At least this time, I was within reach of a shelter before the cloudburst hit, along with eight others. Four other wet hikers arrived during the storm. I made coffee, then headed back out to hike another 6.4 miles through the now-wet trail to tonight's campsite near the .4-mile turnoff to the the shelter.I met a family of four on the way to their car and thought to ask if they had any extra water. This way I'd be able to camp on the ridge without needing to go to the shelter¢and the water source. Funny how you lower your standards out here. I guzzled down one unopened bottle of water, but I had no problem adding half of the daughter¢s open bottle to my own water bottle. Not sure if it was the trail or the ripe black raspberries devoured under the power lines or the fact that I had a cup of coffee at 4 p.m., but today felt much better than yesterday. And this, despite the incredibly steep hill we had around midday that also had us traipsing through nettles for a long time. And including the rocks in the morning. I had expected today to be another day in the office¢just working to get the miles done, which it still was¢but not as exhaustingly so.The last six miles was much smoother between the coffee break shelter and the campsite. The trail passed through a pine forest and across rolling pastures. And there were the black raspberry treats.The last bit, after the berry patch, was Bruisers Knob. There are stacked piles of rocks up here¢better than being underfoot, to be sure. Last year, a nice reader pointed out that the piles I had been observing in in the mid-Atlantic states were the result of mining operations and not, as I posited, the efforts of child or slave labor. Maybe someone knows why there are conical piles along this ridge in Virginia every fifty or so feet. I'll be a little unnerved if I find out I've camped in some civil war-era battle field. There are also apple trees here as well.