Date: 2006-05-29
From: Pearisburg, Rendez-vous Motel

To: Symms Gap Meadow campsite
Miles today: 11.9

My tent is on the brow of a hill on meadow grass overlooking nine mountain ridges in the distance. As a bonus I'll get the morning sun. I had to walk back 50 yards to a cluster of 5 tents is at the "official" location to see the sunset, but more on that later.On Sunday, I took JustJanice and her beau Jamie to Groundhog Creek Trail for a 11-mile slackpack and got back to the motel at 11am where I called Carol to get an idea of when she'd get in. Turned out it would be around 2pm, so I got everything packed and ready to leave today to make the most of the time Carol was with me. When she arrived about 2pm, there was enough time to drive on to The Homeplace, an all you can eat restaurant in a Victorian farmhouse. I got directions from the hotel owner and I drove to give Carol a break. It turns out we missed a turn and wound up in Blacksburg, home of VPI. That gave me a chance to replace my bearbag cord that I had left behind at Trent's and to get amended directions. It turned out we weren't too far out of the way and the outfitter clerk pointed out what road to take. It was a nice country drive. We put our name on the list and claimed a seat in the lawn gazebo for the 20-minute wait. From there we could see an idyllic country scene with beef cattle wading into a pond in the foreground, two deer in the middle distance meadow and mountain ridges beyond. When we were called to dinner it seemed almost too soon. The dinner lived up to its rave reviews among thruhikers. Apparently, all the locals give rave reviews as well because it was packed. The waitress recognized me as a thruhiker (must be the beard) and was extra attentive. We both enjoyed our meals and took home some country ham slices with our leftover biscuits. For all you thruhikers-to-be out there, try to be there on Thur-Sun because it's closed Mon-Wed.On the return, we followed the original directions and had a beautiful drive in a valley between two ridges. Going out and back, Carol caught me up on her week babysitting our grandson, including several hours with Vicky and Anthony in the Greensboro children's museum, and a trip to a park, where they took a ride on a carousel and a mini-train. I told her about some of the new people I met and my week of hiking.This morning we had an excellent breakfast at Friends and Family Restaurant across from Walmart, then checked out. Carol drove me to where I left the AT on Saturday and I resumed hiking. After about a mile, the 1500' climb up Peters Mountain began. I missed a turn and hiked about a half mile on an old roadbed until I finally realized there weren't going to be any white blazes and turned around. It was a long climb up and hot. I rested at a spring and got water just down from the summit and pulled up short of the summit by a campsite in the pipeline swath for a lunch of bagels and cheese and the last of my gorp about 1:20.On the way up I saw four day-hikers headed for Rice Field and its view, two of whom were volunteers from Woodshole Hostel. The other two had dogs which they let run free. One of them wallowed in the spring from which I'd just got water. After a leisurely lunch, I headed on up and checked out Rice Field Shelter in the woods on the edge of a bald field. I signed the register and noted that MarcoPolo is only a few days ahead. Nice shelter but the water is .4 miles downhill. While I was there, McKenzie, Mary, Sarah, and BeerNuts pulled in with NoPliers expected shortly after I left. We all decided to go to a campsite and spring just 50' off the trail about 2 miles ahead. When I got there about 4pm, I found Ronnie, the Israeli, in his hammock. I got my water bladder and Nalgene full of 5 liters and decided to cook dinner and see how I felt about hiking on another 4 miles after that. The others pulled in and set up camp, but I found the location uninspiring and decided to press on about 6pm. I pulled in here about 7:45pm. I had time to set up my tent and rig a bear bag before the sun set. There are six other people here--BigFoot, GreyGoose, Clay&Branch, Pele, Cayenne. The only drawback is that there is no water, but the hike was fairly level from the spring where I filled up, so humping the water wasn't too bad. My heel blisters appreciated the zero day yesterday,and seem to be healing well. On, on!