Date: 2013-07-03
From: Rod Hollow Shelter

To: AT Blackburn Center
Miles today: 17.8
Weather: light rain

It was a pretty good day today. We got up early so that we could start a 6 hour long roller coaster ride! The roller Coaster is a 13.5 mile stretch of the trail that contains a lot of tightly packed ups and downs, and I do mean one after another! I was able to get cell service for a minute this morning and found out that Cindy, from the Shannies, and her fianc© Bill were going to meet us at the AT Blackburn center tonight, slackpack us into Harpers Ferry tomorrow and then spend the rest of the 4th with us! They are so super sweet to be doing this and it will make our last day in VA awesome!!!The roller coaster was pretty exhausting!!! But we did have some breaks in the ride. We hiked into Bears Den Hostel where Fat man had a package waiting and got a coke, and then we headed to The Horseshoe Curve for some amazing burgers! Cindy and Bill ended up meeting us at the Horseshoe and Mama Goose and Fat Man decided to do the last 7 miles in the morning. I was dead set on finishing tonight as we were .8 miles from the 1000 mile mark!!! So they took my pack as well as Lady Mac's, another hiker we met along the way. So off Lady Mac, Flicka (her dog) and I went to reach the 1000 mile mark and to finish the crazy roller coaster ride that had been kicking our butts all day!1000 miles!!! Holy hell!!! I've made it 1000 miles!!! I could not be more excited!!! It was awesome to get to this point, I am almost halfway through this crazy journey!!! We took some pics with the sign and then headed out...it was starting to get a little dark after all!My day started with a roller coaster and it eneded with a rattlesnake!! It was starting to get dark and we might have forgotten our headlamps, we could still see but it was starting to get a little hard. Luckily we had turned down the blue blazed trail that lead into the Blackburn center where we were staying. I had just made a comment that I couldn't see anything and I really hoped that there weren't any snakes on the trail when something caught my eye. I am not sure how I saw it but I stopped dead in my tracks and said I think there's a snake on the trail. I dug my cell phone out of my pocket so that I could use the flashlight app and sure enough stretched out across the trail sat a timber rattler!! It was about 3 feet from where we were...It wasn't rattling but it was across the entire trail! I really have no idea how I saw it but I am really glad that I did and also that Flicka and Lady Mac weren't the first ones in the train it could have ended very badly. As we were sitting there staring at this snake up the trail from the other direction comes Wonder Boy with a headlamp, we tell him about the snake, he gets closer and decided to hit the ground with his trekking pole to see if he can get the snake to move. And what do you think it does, oh yeah it coils up and starts to rattle like crazy!! but does it coil up towards him, oh no it coils up towards us! We weren't even doing anything to the stupid thing but looking at it! We all made wide berths around the snake and then continued on our way to the Blackburn center. I did however keep my headlamp out the rest of the way down the trail! No more surprise snakes for us!!!Tomorrow is Harpers Ferry!!! I am so excited to finally get there!! and to say Good Bye to this state that I have spent way to much time in!!!