Date: 2004-04-22
From: Grassy creek Rd, VA 859

To: Va. 600, Elk Garden
Miles today: 9.2
Weather: light rain

VA 859 Grassy Creek Rd to  Whitetop MT Road  S 6.8 miles  Whitetop MT Road to Va. 600, Elk Garden    N 2.4 milesThis is Thursday April 22nd. Got up the next morning, had breakfast. Park the car at Virginia 859 Grassy Creek Road. Drove the other car on up to Whitetop Mountain Road, usfs 89. Got on the trail at 10:35 a.m. Tom Richey had called this morning and told us about parking on Whitetop Mountain Road. Should be about six and a half miles back to our other car. After this first hike we will reshuttle our cars and Hike between Whitetop Mountain Road and Virginia 600, Elk Garden. After less than a mile on the trail we come to Buzzard Rock, which has beautiful views. This place is worth coming back to in the future. There are mountain View's all around you, we stayed there 20 minutes. Just barely started off down the trail and met Grasshopper. He is from Greenwich Village New York and we took pictures of each other. He is thru-hiking and will take a week off when he gets to New York. We went on down the trail and ran into Castro, had a nice long talk with him. He was ready for a break. We talked about Bramble and Mouth and he said someone named Burn. We have seen 3 other hikers this morning. At breakfast this morning we had talked about Toxic Free, the guy who wore all the trash bags we saw the other day. Apparently he's allergic to a lot of things, and freely tells people he's been in a mental institution. We might meet him on the trail today if he's continuing on. Castro was telling us about Bramble. He's so muscular and doing so many miles and doesn't appear to be eating properly. Castro says Bramble has stopped now, to help somebody put a roof on, but will be able to catch up. Kate is apparently hiking a few days with him, only around Damascus. Bramble spent a week at Miss Janet's hostel in Erwin putting Plumbing in her private bathroom. He sounds like a good guy and we are going to check out his web page when we get home. We past another guy named Doc, a med student hiking the trail. Finally ran into Burn on the trail, Terry told him Castro mentioned he was a two-pack-a-day smoker. Burn said smoking doesn't slow him down. He started the same day as Castro on Springer Mountain and he is able to keep up. He was sucking a sucker at that moment, instead of a cigarette. His clothing smells like a smoker though. At 1 p.m. we came out to Virginia 601. We had our lunch there on a bench for about 20 minutes and then moved on. We walked through a big pasture and came to us 58 at 2 pm. We met Coalritis who got his name because of arthritic toes, which hurts like the dickens, he takes ibuprofen for it. He got laid off from work, which gave him a chance to hike the Appalachian Trail. He hopes the economy will be better in 6 months. At 2:30 p.m. we came to Lost Mountain shelter, where there were 3 hikers. The young guy Alabama was having some lunch, Slick was an older guy, mid fifties, and the third guy was sleeping in the shelter. Slick was making a career change, which gave him an opportunity to hike, and was meeting his wife this weekend. Cindy gave Slick some grief about using the Virginia creeper Trail instead of the Appalachian Trail. But he said that didn't matter to him. He was still an Appalachian Trail thru hiker. Hike your own hike. A lot of hikers take a day off in Damascus and ride a bike on the Virginia Creeper Trail. He caught Castro walking up the Virginia Creeper Trail yesterday. Slick told us that the Sidetrack Cafe puts on a $5 Buffet for hikers. That could have saved us some money the other night except beer is not included. As we started to leave the shelter it started raining. So we stayed while it rained, And talked a little bit more. So we left without taking a picture or reading the journal. At 2:50 p.m. we left the shelter and 3:20 pm. we arrived at our car. So we shuttle the cars, by dropping one off at Virginia 600 Elk garden, and driving back to Whitetop Mountain Road usfs 89, to start our second hike of the day . We are back on the trail heading north at 4:10 pm. We are hiking light with no packs. It's been nice with mostly downhill. Rocky in a few places, it's now 5:25 and we've done the 2.4 miles to Elk Garden. We were flying, Terry literally flying because he fell, with just a half a mile to go. He bent up his glasses a little bit. Planted his face in the dirt, luckily. A few scrapes, but hopefully he can hike tomorrow. We met Sobo from Greensboro North Carolina , he talked about moving to Tennessee because of the rat race at home. Talked about trails in this area. Finally, I saw a yellow snake today. Wouldn't have noticed him except him moving leaves around. Don't know what kind he was, just yellow with other markings.