Date: 2015-06-05
From: Campsite 958.2

To: Camp site 982.4
Miles today: 24.2
Weather: overcast clouds

Drip, drip, drip. That is what we woke to this morning. It rained most of the night. But, it wasn't raining when we woke, just dripping from the trees. We have been in Shenandoah National Park for six days. We have been poured rain on every day. We are having dejuvu of the Soakies (aka: The Smokies).    We peeked out of the tent to fog. Ugh, another dreadful day. We packed as much of our gear into our packs inside our tent as we could. Someone told us yesterday to put paper towels in our boots to help dry them out. We did this but it didn't work very well. We used the paper towels to try to dry off the tent. It helped a bit, but not very much. We packed our wet tent up and headed up the trail. We finished hiking up North Marshall Mountain. When we hike up, of course we have to go down. We went down 1000 feet over 3 miles. The trail wasn't rocky but it was very, very wet. We climbed 500 feet to Compton Peak. You guessed it, no view because of the fog. We had a nice, easy trail. The flowers from the tulip trees had fallen because of the rain. It looked as if we were walking over confetti. It was rather pretty looking and hard to step on the flowers.      A 2000 foot descent over 6 miles had us at US522. During this decent, we exited Shenandoah National park. The terrain after the park boundary was rocky, rocky, rocky. The trail was muddy. So muddy that almost every time we took a step, we slide forward. Our trekking poles certainly were very necessary. We also saw our first glimpse of the red clay of Virginia. The trail was very red. We passed by honeysuckle bushes. They smelled so good. The rain had knocked alot of the flowers off these bushes also. That is why the fragrance was so strong.   We crossed over US522, found a flat area. We were within 20feet of the road. The passing vehicles made a breeze. Since there was no sun or wind today, we decided to stop here for lunch. It was early, but when circumstances show themselves, you do what you have to do. We set our tent up to dry from the wind of the passing vehicles. If you passed us, you would have thought we were homeless bums. We sat here for an hour. Our tent was fairly dry, at least drier than it was.    Up, up, up we climbed, 1000 feet. Doing this after eating makes for a harder climb. Again, the trail was very, very muddy. Now, with every step we took, we slid backwards. Dejuvu of Jacob's Ladder except it wasn't raining today. Of course, next was down 800 feet. During this descent, we heard a very loud crashing noise just off the trail. We thought, oh no a bear. But, it wasn't a bear. A huge tree had fallen. It certainly scared us. Our adrenaline had us flying down the mountain. Too bad our adrenaline didn't help us make the next 500 foot climb. This trail was steep. And yes, the trail was muddy, muddy muddy. Our calves looked like we rolled in the mud. Our boots were so very heavy from the mud. We cleaned our legs and boots off in a stream. We were clean only for a bit as the next 800 foot descent was just as a muddy. Hmm, and we thought we might stay clean until we set up camp.   Our last climb of the day was over 1400 feet. It was broken into 3 segments, so the climb didn't seem that hard. We also passed some weekend hikers; it is Friday evening. These hikers want to have long conversations. We just want to finish hiking for the day. But, we are polite and have a casual conversation about our hiking. Then, we leave and try to hike faster to make up the time we lost. Ask any thru-hiker, everyone feels the same. We don't mean to be rude, just at the end of a 20+ mile day, we are tired.    We made the summit and started our descent. We found a stealth campsite and set up our tent. We left everything out of the tent in hope that it would somehow finish drying - without the sun or a breeze. The tent did dry more. Thankfully, we have a dry tent to sleep in tonight.   As we were eating our dinner, a lady came to photograph a rare flower blooming near our campsite. The rare wild False Goat Beard was blooming. This is part of the Astible flower. It does look like the Astible flowers growin in gardens. You never know what we will find in the woods.