Date: 2018-09-03
From: Four Pines Hostel (VA 624)

To: Daleville (US 220)
Miles today: 25.7
Weather: light rain

Having the Four Pines Hostel all to myself feels strange. I can imagine how crowded and rowdy it is in peak season. But I'm not complaining. It's a comfortable and quiet night's sleep. I'm awake as the sky lightens, in time to hear the rooster outside the garage begin to crow. There are a couple dozen chickens, ducks, and something that might be Guinea fowl milling around the garage 24/7. I have to avoid them as I pull the 1980s Aerostar van out for a breakfast run to the gas station. The van only has 80,000 miles on it but looks like it's been to the moon and back. Everything is now dry from last night's laundry, I have a lunch of leftover ham and biscuits from the Home Place, so I pack up and hike back to the trailhead. The trail winds through fields for two miles then over a low but rocky ridge to the McAfee Knob parking area. It's a sunny day, humid, and destined to be a barnburner. But it's also Labor Day, so the lot is jammed with cars parked in every place possible. This is one of the most accessible and spectacular views in Virginia so the crowds are no surprise. I pass dozens of dayhikers coming and going from the knob, which is four miles out over relatively good trail with occasional bedrock. There's a better graded fire road alternative for the less intrepid hikers. McAfee Knob lives up to its reputation, with long sweeping 180° views. The bedrock ledges jut out 10 or more feet over air, making for those iconic photographs. One of my niggling concerns during those long days seeing almost no one on the trail was being the only one up here and having no one to take my picture. No way to get a McAfee Knob selfie without a 30 foot arm! Labor Day negates that concern. A friendly dayhiker gets artistic and has me posing for a dozen different shots. Alongside Katahdin, Springer, and Harpers Ferry, McAfee Knob completes my AT must-have photo set!I'd love to say that I leave McAfee Knob on a high and float along the rest of the day, but that doesn't happen. Already ten miles in, the next sixteen miles past the equally beautiful Tinker Cliffs and over to Daleville are more like a death march. Humidity and hot sun are not a hiker's friends. Constant ups and downs and rocky ridges aren't either. And near total absence of water for twenty miles definitely is not. The one source is a stream bed with little more than puddles that need to be scooped out. It's enough to get me through, but I am effectively dehydrated most of the day, and as a result in a pretty bad mood. I've been disappointed in my pace most of this trip, but today seems particularly off. I start a downhill that I'm sure maps to a certain point on the elevation profile based on how long I've been hiking, but then I reach a landmark that I think I should have passed two miles ago! Each mile is a battle to keep myself motivated. The lack of water and campsites is the stick; my car in Daleville is the carrot. At one point I am aware of passing a beautiful hidden lake below the ridge with the sun setting over the mountains behind it, but I'm in no mood to appreciate the view. Instead the impending darkness spurs me on. After a seeming eternity the ridge relents and releases me into the forest below. In relatively short order I'm at route 220 in Daleville with end-of-holiday-weekend traffic screaming past. Dutifully I cross the road to link up this section with the one I started in Daleville back in June. Then I visit the gas station next door for some nectar of the gods. My car is mercifully unmolested in the Valley Cleaners parking lot. After a change, a washroom splashdown, and a burger dinner I begin to feel human again. It's 360 miles home up I-81 and I doubt I'll make it tonight after such a long day. But once on the road I enter a state of sustained attention and unusual lucidity. Things seem very clear and very simple. I feel no need to stop or even break. As far as I know no chemicals are involved. Five hours later I'm back home and about five minutes after I'm asleep in bed.