Date: 2008-04-28
From: Bearfence Mountain Hut VA

To: Not so Legal Campsite VA
Miles today: 18.5

Day 71 ¢ Monday April 28 ¢ Not so Legal Campsite VA ¢ Miles Today: 18.5 Total Miles: 922.8The day started at 5:00 with the alarm going off. It was raining. We decided that since we didn't want to risk damaging the headlamps by getting them wet in the rain and since we only had 18 miles to go that we would sleep another half hour. Back to sleep we went. We didn't hit the trail until 6:45.Another hiker arrived to the shelter last night, but we were already in our tent and did not meet him until this morning when he headed up the trail. We were at the stream right beside the trail when he pushed off for the day. It was about 50 degrees, if that, outside this morning. We were dressed in full rain gear plus our knit hats. He was dressed in skimpy runner shorts, a T-shirt and teeny little gaiters. He may have had on a knit hat. He looked like he had 0% body fat. He must hike awful fast to stay warm with so little clothes on! We imagine he is a thru-hiker, but we didn't really have much of a dialogue. He was going north is all we know. We¢re guessing that he¢s headed 26 miles to the next shelter, which we had no interest in doing.   We¢re stopping after 18.9 miles at an old shelter site. It started raining about 8:00 last night and it rained, as far as we can tell, all night long and it has rained basically all day today, stopping about 4:00 when we pulled into camp. If there was a pause in the rain during the day, it wasn't for more than half an hour. Due to the rain, our number of breaks today was nearly zero. We sat down on a rock to eat our breakfast and lunch, but that was it. Even our snack breaks were taken standing up. Our breaks for the entire day probably added up to just 30-40 minutes!The trail took us around the Big Meadows Campground area and we saw the lodge up on the hill. We didn't go off the trail to explore it more as it was raining and a campground is a campground. We kept on booking. When we passed Rock Spring Hut at the mid-point today, a hiker was coming out. He looked much like a day-hiker with a god-awful huge backpack. He had on jeans and his pack looked like it weighed 165 pounds with all kinds of stuff hanging off it. He had on a $1 pale yellow plastic poncho. Under the poncho he was wearing a red lumberjack plaid cotton pullover. We stopped to chat with him for a while. He said his other jeans got wet 2 days ago so he's wearing his dry pair today! I asked him how many days he had been out which could have been quite an insult if he¢s been out for weeks or months, but he just looked mighty green so I thought it was an appropriate question. He said he's been out for 6 days and is hiking from Virginia to Maine. I guessed correctly. I'm not quite sure how he's going to make it to Maine with the gear he has, but it¢s possible. Others have done it with similar gear. We tried to match his stride heading up the trail and could not! He's a very tall man with a huge stride. Heck, he¢ll be to Maine in 100,000 steps the way he¢s going! He¢s hiking 13 miles to the next shelter. We had already done 13 when we met him, and planned on stopping short of a 26-mile day, so we did not see him again today. He most likely made it to the next shelter, but he probably now has 2 pair of wet jeans! The trail brought us out to many overlooks today. We actually could see out a couple of them as the fog had lifted at that brief moment, but from the majority of them, if we were to take a picture, it would look basically white or gray. We missed a lot of great views today. We saw tons of deer today; 6 in one pack. There were 4 on one side of the trail and 2 on the other side. We're somewhere around 922.8 and we say somewhere because we¢re not sure of our exact location. Our guidebook was not lining up to the trail signs. We were looking for old Shave Hollow Shelter site. The sign we saw around this mile marker said Nicholson Hollow Trail. Hmmm, what to do? There are not a ton of camping sites so we surely did not want to miss an opportunity and have to hike 7 more miles to the next hut! We took the side trail and explored camping options. Nothing. Nothing legal, that is. We're camped totally illegally. Campsites must be 14 mile from roads. We're 50 yards from Skyline Drive. Oops. Campsites must be 50 yards (or is it 100 yards) from the trail. We¢re 0 yards from the trail. Oops, 0 yards? Yep, we're camped right smack in the middle of the trail. At least it¢s not the AT, it¢s a side trail. It's the only cleared area. We were tired. It had been raining all day. Our bodies were done. Our minds were done. We're camped. So We're pleading hypothermia. Self-rescue. Had to pitch the tent. Do you think the ranger will buy it??We drank very little water today because drinking water has this effect of making us go pee and needing to go pee in the rain is not such a good idea for Grasshopper because her base layer clothes get wet. We headed out of camp with 5 liters of water. We arrived to our illegal campsite with 4.5 liters of water after 19 miles. So not a good thing! Filtering water today could have been done at 100 to 200 different places as either the trail was a stream or a stream was running across the trail. There was even water pooling in the grooves of rocks. You name a place and there was water there. It has rained for about 20 hours, nearly straight, so I don¢t think there will be a water shortage for the next few days.It's 6:00; the thermometer is buried in my pack. My guess is that it's in the lower 50s. Everything is a bit damp or wet. Once we got in the tent, we quickly put on all our layers as the wet chilly weather was getting in our bones! We can hear the Skyline Drive road behind us. We need to make our to-do list for Front Royal and then we can crash. Unfortunately, tomorrow is another big day - 21 miles. After that one, we are down to lower miles. So life will be good again here soon and hopefully the sun will come out, too. Good night.