Date: 2007-11-16
From: Daleville, VA

To: Pearisburg, VA
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: broken clouds

It's snowing! We're in Pearisburg after a really wet day yesterday, and it started to snow while we were gorging ourselves at the Pizza Hut lunch buffet, and it's still snowing now that we are at the library. Our section from Blacksburg to here went well. I hiked with El Presidente, who has now taken the name of Patriotic Thunder, for the whole time, and we had a blast. We enjoyed the hike up to Dragon's Tooth from Catawba, and met a guy and his daughter up there. We took some good photos but headed out rather quickly because it looked like it was going to rain. I wore my new gaiters, and they did an excellent job of keeping my socks clean. Previously, since my shoes are only the height of tennis shoes, my socks got really dirty, which I think contributed to their seemingly short life (around 400 miles or so). I didn't have to stop to empty my shoes all day, and when we got to the shelter, there was only one pine needle in it. As we were rolling into the shelter we smelled smoke (always nice to arrive somewhere and find other people have already gathered wood and started the fire) and heard a dog barking. I had to shout if the dog was tied up a few times, to which they finally replied that it was. It ended up that the dog was small and just liked to bark at strangers, but she warmed up to us and ended up not being a problem. There were two older guys with the dog, and they were good company.In the morning, Betsy showed up, which was a bit of surprise. Her brother goes to Tech and was going to be slacking her for close to the whole next week. She seemed just as slow-paced as before, which didn't seem too appropriate given that she was trying to hike 24 miles! It was a bit of a climb to the top of the mountain from the shelter, and when we got up top there were lots of slippery rocks. Betsy and Prez fell, but I managed to keep on my feet the whole time, which I attributed to my use of poles. We had the pleasure of crossing the eastern Continental Divide, and though no one had to go to the bathroom, we took pictures that made it look like we were peeing. We saw some interesting dwellings along the way, many of which had lots of junked cars sitting in the front yards. We also passed the first person on the trail who truly made you feel uncomfortable. We were walking along and this older guy was walking towards us really fast, wearing jeans, a flannel shirt and tennis shoes. He was soaked in sweat, his eyes were blood shot, and he didn't say anything when we said hello. We picked up the pace, and kept looking over our shoulders to see if he would turn around. Luckily we did not see him again. We got to the shelter and found a bunch of firewood sitting next to the fire ring, so we had a nice little fire and sat around drinking tea and having a relaxing evening. Betsy had said that she would see us after dark as she walked by, but she never came by, so who knows what happened to her. We think she might have tried to hitch out from the road before the shelter. We saw her alive after we passed the sketchy dude, though, so she can't be that bad off.The climb up out of the shelter was another tough one, but it was the only one of two for the whole day, which wasn't that bad. We got up into clouds pretty quickly, and the spring we had counted on was dry, so while the air was super wet, our throats were dry. The only thing we could see from the viewpoints was fog, but we kept chugging onwards because we had settled on a 25 mile day. We got to the lunch shelter and as we read the register we found out that the next shelter had no roof, and that the bridge over the "Mississippi" had washed out. It was a 1200 foot drop to the road & creek, and it was amazing how quickly it went! A 1200 foot climb is pretty significant and seems to last forever, but a 1200 foot drop happens in no time at all. It was sprinkling as we left the shelter, and by the time we were 1/2 mile from the shelter it was raining pretty steadily, and the temp was in the 50s. I put on my rain jacket, but I just started to sweat to the point where it felt like it was doing more harm than good. I got to the creek to find that the bridge really had washed out and that nothing had been done to remedy the situation. I rock hopped and was able to keep my feet dry, which I was pretty surprised about. There had been accounts in the register of people wading it thigh-deep! The rain stopped, and I shed my jacket, and we got to the shelter with no roof. It was a shame, because it was a really nice stone shelter, and a huge oak tree had fallen on it in the spring. It didn't look like anything was being done to put a new roof on it, either. We climbed the last climb of the day, which actually put us onto the West Virginia/Virginia state line, which runs the length of Peters Mountain, north of Pearisburg. The clouds looked somewhat nasty, but they cleared as we were rolling into the shelter, and we could actually see the moon and some stars. It took us exactly 10 hours to hike exactly 25 miles, which a few decent breaks in the middle, so we definitely made good time for the day. While we were eating, a NOBO section hiker showed up, so we picked his brain for information on the trail south of here. Around 4am a huge storm came through with wind whipping around like crazy, and rain like no other. I didn't realize it, but it blew my rain coat out into the woods, so in the morning it was covered with leaves and thoroughly soaked. Though the wind was coming directly from behind the shelter, there was spray coming into the shelter, so I turned my bag and pad and slept parallel to the back wall of the shelter. Luckily, the shelter is new, so the roof didn't leak. This morning, Prez and I decided to take a nero in Pearisburg, so we did the seven miles into town, and we are hanging out here until tomorrow. Tartar Sauce, Squigglywhampus and Woodward are staying two doors down from us in the Rendezvous Motel, which is quite the establishment. We are definitely getting into the more redneck part of the mountains, now. Pizza Hut was full of interesting characters, and we got a ride to Pizza Hut from a guy that owns another pizza place down the street from it, which was pretty cool. I had planned to send food ahead to the next town stop, but I forgot my wallet back at the hotel, so I've ditched my plan to do that, and am going to hope that the truck stop that I walk by in 3 days will have sufficient food. If they don't I will just have to hitch a few miles to a grocery store, which shouldn't be too bad. The section hiker at the shelter last night said that they had a pretty decent selection at the truck stop, so I should be good to go. He also said that there are lots of hostels in Tenn., and I verified his claim, and believe that I'm going to be able to go 110 miles in 4 nights just going from hostel to hostel. I have been averaging 20 miles a day since I got back on the trail at Waynesboro, so I'm keeping on track to make my revised completion deadline of December 15th. I will be spending Thanksgiving night in a shelter, most likely alone, but I'm going to try to take some turkey lunch meat and some instant mashed potatoes with me to eat. If TS, WW and SW all leave the hotel in the morning, I might stick with them for a while, though they are shooting for finishing on the 19th of December; I'm going to try to talk them into shooting for the 15th. I've got 621.6 miles left to go, and can't wait to be done!