Date: 2017-08-20
From: Mosby camp site

To: Gravel Springs Hut campsite
Miles today: 17.4
Weather: scattered clouds

I got up around 6 after 8 night of tossing and turning in part due to paying from yesterday's long hike. After breakfast I finished packing up. I took a picture with like her intrepid. And then I hit the trail southbound. 3 miles later roughly I reached the trail intersection with route 522 and I went to the nearby Mountain Home hospital. There the proprietors, Scott and Lisa, give me a cup of coffee and then Lisa help me put some excess items about 2 pounds worth into a flat rate mailbox that she said she would put in the mail the following day because the post office was not open today Sunday. Lisa then took me to a grocery store where I did resupply at her recommendation for 4 days. It may take more than that to cross the Shenandoah National Park which I will enter today. However she said there are frequent enough wayside stuck with food items that I should be able to get additional resupply easily during the crossing. After we returned to the hostel, i repacked my stuff including two freshly folled water bottles and I continued my hike south. I was headed up the trail on the other side of Route 522 at just about noon. I had about 13 miles to go to the shelter I had picked as my likely destination.When I had just about completed my hike down to route 522, I had noticed that the land on the right hand side of the trail was fenced in, and at the intersection with route 522, was a sign that said Gate 7. Well we were returning from the grocery store I noticed a lot of land similarly fenced. I asked about it and Lisa explained that it is land belonging to the Smithsonian conservation biology institute. Apparently this is connected also in some way with the National Zoo in Washington DC. The Institute mission is to protect endangered species. Some of those species have Habitat inside restricted only buy the external fence. Apparently it has been challenging protecting those species from wild coyote. Inside the fence there are also additional enclosed spaces for predators. According to Lisa this includes some leopards and some maned wolves.The initial climb was not too steep but it was sunny and hot. Around 1:30 p.m. I reached the Tom Floyd wayside shelter. I stopped in for a few minutes just to have a drink of water and sign the log book.Shortly before 2 o'clock I reach the self service kiosk at which hikers sign in at the north end of the Shenandoah National Park. I already had my permit filled out in trouble ticket because Scott head given me a blank one at the mountain home hostel, and he had helps me feel it out. So I just had to drop the two carbon copies into the registration box and affix your top copy to my backpack with the wire provided.Across the road at Compton gap sometime between 2 and 2:30 and I reached Compton peak about 245 or a little later. As I continue down the trail I could here and see that Skyline Drive was down the Ridgeline downhill to my left and that I was traveling roughly parallel to it. The road went in and out of you several times as I began the climb of North Mount Marshall. The trail was very wide and relatively easy. How about 3:30 I noticed that the section I was going through about halfway up the northern slope of North Mount Marshall was weed whacked. Just before 3:45 as I was trying to walk and journal if the same time I walked right past a snake and didn't notice it until I was directly adjacent to it 6 inches away. I took a picture. The snake made no aggressive move. In fact it made hardly any movement at all it simply wiggled its tongue in there probably trying to smell me. None the less I did not like the look of it. If looked to me like it might have a rattle on its tail although the snake did not use it as such. In any case I decided to modify my behavior and not try to walk and look at my phone at the same time.Add about 415 p.m. I'm at to northbound hikers with trail hands "walk in tree" and "rain". We talked for about 15 or 20 minutes. Walk said his Trail name was because he is deaf and blind and walks into trees. Rain dipd not explain how she got her name. I asked them about the snake and they identified it has a rattler. Rain said it look like a timber RattlerI told them approximately where they would see the snake if it was still there. They gave me a lot of information about the trail south of where I was.At about 4:45 I came to the summit of North Mount Marshall and shortly after that I came to a viewpoint called the cliffs. From the cliffs I took a picture of the view to the west. According to my map the little pound that was visible in that direction was sundown Virginia.Shortly after that, I saw Intrepid, who was coming from a view point. She complained about shin muscle pain. We walked slowly and talked during the remaining mile to the Gravel Springs Hut.  The trail crossed skyline drive, and I noticed that this was the 4th time since the Compton trailhead. There were a bunch of people there already, and more came after we arrived (I would guess a couple dozen all together). There were already three people in the shelter designed for a max of six. So we decided to tent again. We got good tent spots near a chatty guy trail named "chipmonk". He told us that the first time he had hiked here, in 2005, a SWAT guy had come up behind him, looking for a suspect in a murder that had occurred just north of here. I cooked and ate dinner at the picnic table near the shelter, and we carefully put all our food and "smellable" items (like toothpaste...) into the bear box near the shelter. There were about a dozen bags also hung from a nearby bear pole. People said there had been a bear sighted here yesterday, casually walking by a out 10 feet from the tent area. As part of my pre-bedtime routine, I also applied some Neosporin ointment to the top of my head and my left calf. I apparently abraded the former when I walked into a low-hanging branch over the trail (that I could not see because of the brim of my hat). I scraped the latter stepping over a tree that had fallen across the trail. I also bathed feet and washed my muddy legs, and then put on insect repellent before bed. By this time it was starting to get dark. I had no cell data signal so i could not text family or post my journal. So i shut my phone off for the night.As I tried to get to sleep, I could hear faint voices coming from the east. Rowdy campers near skyline drive perhaps? I'm not sure. I tried to ignore it, and the voices were Soon drowned out by the noise of the forest bugs and frogs. Eventually, I fell asleep anyway.