Date: 2009-06-11
From: Pedlar Lake Rd - trailmagic

To: Fish Hatchery Rd
Miles today: 20.3

It is always a good thing to wake up to the smell of bacon in the woods. Renegade and Tom Boy were busy making a big breakfast of pancakes, eggs, bacon, sausage and sausage links for all of us hungry hikers who camped close by their trail magic set up. It was wonderful and exactly what we needed for the day ahead. We spent some time talking with them and letting them know how thankful we were for their "magic" and then Bark, myself and Otter headed out towards VA 60. Last night we talked about slack packing a good section of trail today and had decided we would hike to VA 60- about 5 miles in and then make a decision if it was worth the hitch into Buena Vista and then back out. Well, we made it to the road pretty quickly and we were soon convinced that slack packing a big mile day was just the motivation we needed here in the middle of Virginia (The Green Tunnel).We got a hitch pretty quick from a section hiker who had picked up a couple of south bounders as well. We got into Buena Vista and found Honey Do who decided to join us. He had been feeling the Virginia Blues lately and felt like slack packing gave him some motivation to keep on going, so we were more than glad to have him join us. Once we got set up in town we called a shuttle who took us up to Fish Hatchery Road right outside of Montebello- a very small (1 store, 1 post office, 1 fishing pond) town. From Fish Hatchery we committed ourselves to hike 16.3 miles South, back to VA 60 to get another hitch back down to Buena Vista. Let me just say we did not think this through very well and had no idea how confusing it would be. Our ride from "Leggs" up to the drop off point, took us to the bottom of a very rocky hill/ drive way and up we went- but we started out going up the wrong gravel driveway. Leggs had directed us up the wrong driveway and we didn't realize it until after the sixth or seventh NO TRESPASSING sign that read in small print: This is not the way to the Appalachian Trail or Spy Rock. Ha- that was pretty clear and we turned right around and headed back to the fork where we missed the actual road to the trail head. To our good fortune there was very nice local named Cathy who was in her jeep and gave us a ride halfway up the 1.1 miles up the very steep walk. Finally, we made it to the trail head about 1:30pm and we had 16 miles to go. We took off pretty quickly knowing we only had so much time and we some big climbs to get over. The point of the slack pack was to avoid the 2,000 foot climb over a very steep mountain, so instead, we got to go descend it. Throughout the day we saw several friends- Journey, Freebird, Bones and One Step among others. We hiked the entire day with Otter and the end of the hike Honey Do joined up and we all finished out together. We made great time and hit VA 60 by about 7:30pm. We ran out to the road just in time to see several cars drive by- oh well, we knew there would be more. Thankfully, Honey Do carries a very friendly sign that reads "Hiker to Town" on one side and "Hiker to Trail" on the other to help with his hitches. Finally a silver Subaru came wizzing around the corner and they pulled over after watching us all flag them down with thumbs proudly waving. Turns out it was a very nice guy about our age on his way to his brother's wedding that weekend. The sign is what caught his attention and sealed the deal for us. He took us into town and once in a room, we headed back out to grab dinner with Otter (burgers and milkshakes- yum!). It had been a very long day and we were tired so as we walked back to our room in the rain we were feeling more than ready for bed. Showers later- it was bed time and lights out around 10pm. We decided to worry about a hitch back to the trail in the morning... this was quite possibly our last slack for a very long time!