Date: 2021-08-18
From: Highway 11

To: Trimpi Shelter 
Miles today: 21.4
Weather: overcast clouds

So yesterday afternoon, Quiksilver received an out-of-the-blue text from an unknown person, indicating they had got his number from an emergency contact list on a phone they had found. The phone they had found was in a river up in Maine by Jo-Mary road. It seems that a 13 year old boy had spotted the phone that Lamb¢s Ear had lost a month ago, underneath the bridge about 75 yards from where it entered the river. The lad¢s mom had plugged it in and it charged up and that¢s how they got Quiksilver¢s number. A month submerged in the river, and the iPhone still worked. Lambs ear had already replaced her phone weeks ago, so she very kindly invoked the ancient ¢Finders-Keepers¢ rule and told the mom that if she was ok with it, the boy could keep it. Pretty awesome story, all the way around. Had a very restful evening at Murray-Ann¢s, sleeping on a soft bed with a ceiling fan going all night. I didn¢t hear the wind and weather hit around 1am, as I was on the side away from it¢s approach. Our host fixed us eggs, cinnamon toast, and coffee and we returned the favor by clearing away some hard to reach cobwebs from the upstairs hallway. Murray drove us back to the trail at 7:45 (a single hand on the wheel of her Jag; hugging the blind corner¢s like an Indy Car driver)We said our grateful goodbyes in the gas station parking lot and thanked her for a truly memorable stay. What an awesome lady. We then pointed ourselves uphill and started back SOBO into the woods. It had been sunny in the valley back at Murray-Ann¢s house, but looking up into the hills, the clouds had not lifted. We had a 1600 foot climb up to the tree covered top of Glade Mountain, so we got to it. In order to reach Damascus by Saturday, we needed to hike about 21 today to reach a shelter area and set up the next few days. With all the bopping up and down we had a decent elevation gain for the day. We stopped just after noon at the Mt Rogers visitors center which is still closed due to Covid, for reasons that must be clear to them. It had been raining pretty steady since we got over 3000 feet on the climb and I was soaked through. I had a piece of cake that Murray-Ann had sent along as well as a new menu item for Ol¢ Sev: pepperoni wraps. Not bad. We left, with 10 miles still ahead of us and rain clouds gathering again. It did rain briefly, but then cleared up around two as we ridge-hopped into the afternoon. I could feel my feet starting to crack and get hot spots due to being wet for the last few days (hooray!) but on I went, goal in mind. The rain the last two days has also jump-started some of the creeks. In fact, this was the first day since I¢ve been back in trail that we found water somewhere other than the bottom of a valley. Also saw a lot of dear again today, including three bucks - the largest of which was a six-point. I¢ve now encountered deer everyday I¢ve been on the trail in Virginia. No bears the last few days, though. Dang. We did pass three SOBO section hikers today, one of whom had been hiking for two months, averaging 7 miles a day. Once upon a time, I may have been judgmental about this, but being out here on the trail, I¢ve grown to respect all the hikers, regardless of miles. Arriving at the shelter about 4:15, we got set up and started to unwind. Well, at least until I got stung once again by a yellow jacket.  Little @$¢;#*^~!!  This shelter also has the first bear box we¢ve seen in Virginia. Apparently there has been a lot of bear activity from here to Damascus and all the shelters will have boxes at them. So no hanging food bags!  This is super-fine.I¢m mostly dried out (until I put on my wet hiking clothes in the morning) and relaxing in my hammock, safely away from the bee-riddled shelter. Tomorrow we hope to hike another 20 miles, but there are three big climbs in front of us, the last of which (if we get that far) will be a climb up to just under 5000 feet. We shall see!