Date: 2004-06-23
From: Loft Mtn. Campground

To: Swift Run Gap
Miles today: 17.1

I got up and went to the camp store for a shower and groceries as it opened at 9. As soon as I came out of the shower it is raining. I start walking to the wayside restaurant to meet the other guys for breakfast, and I'm offered a ride by a camper. I get out of the rain, but his car is so full I have to hold his dog on my lap. We get out and join the others for breakfast. After filling up on eggs, bacon, hash browns, and really crappy pancakes, we are offered (by the guy who gave us the beers last night) a slackpack 9 miles down the road. I grabbed a rainjacket and water, and nightrider and I began to walk back up to the campground. He stuck his thumb out and a truck pulled up. We opened the back and a little girl about 8 was in the back and said "You can't come in here." Nightrider says, "It's okay, they stopped for us." She didn't look happy. He tried to ease the tension by saying "Hi, I'm nightrider." I followed with "Hey- I'm Tarzan." She had a very confused look. Nightrider smiled at me, "I don't think she's buying it." By this point we were at our destination, and we hiked on. I got ahead of him, covering the 9 miles in 2 1/2 hours. I was feeling great without a pack, even though it was raining. I met up with the other guys, eating an apple as we got our packs out of the guys trucks. I decided to hike, still full from breakfast, while the others dried out for lunch at the ranger station. I got to the Hightop Hut, tired and wet, wanting to push on but not feeling up to it. Nightrider comes an hour later and we read the register, with comments of partying at the next shelter 13 miles ahead. We both wanted to make it, but by the time we made it it would be well past dark, and too late to party. What to do?I suggested we hitch from skyline drive, half jokingly. Nightrider really took off on the idea, and bolter off. He said he'd have a ride waiting. I followed after, and he was there at the road crossing. He said he'd been there 15 minutes and only one car had passed.We managed to flag the next one and hopped in the back, but it was already full. Alabama, Kaya, Dutch, Sunpig and Whistler were in the back. We had a good laugh as we crammed in the back. They were hitching up to Big Meadows taproom to have a going away party for Whistler, who ran out of money and had to get off the trail. Rider and I got off at the Lewis Mtn. Campground to find that the store was closed an hour earlier than we expected. He tried to sweet talk the woman closing up to let us buy some beer, but she was having a bad day. She did tell us that a group of hikers had bought cases just an hour or two before. So we booked the rest of the way, covering almost a mile in ten minutes to the shelter and saw about 15 people having a good old time. I ran into people I hadn't seen since trial days, Puck Fin (Happy Birthday), Keytone, Sarge, Saffron, and Travis, now 9 monkeys. We had a beer, caught up with folks, and left at 8:30. We bushwhacked back to the road to hitch to big meadows. We start walking down the road. It is dark. A car passes our outstretched thumbs without stopping. It gets darker. We wait.I see headlights coming towards us and put the thumb out. Rider warns- "Not this one." and I put it down. Hitch hiking is a grey issue on Skyline Drive- frowned upon. The car slows down anyway. It is a park ranger. She questions us a little and tells us to hop in the back. It looks like the back of a cop car, with the bulletproof glass. The doors lock. There is a rifle in front of me on the other side of the glass. I wasn't sure where we were headed.We put on our saccharin smiles and talked to her the whole way as she dropped us off at the campground at dusk. We headed straight to the taproom, the only place open to eat. As we enter the building Alabama comes up the stairs. He catches my eyes with his and flicks them towards the door. We follow him out. He and the other three got butchered on the price of a room he explained, paying over a hundred bucks. He says we can stay on the floor. We go to drop off our packs and head back out to the taproom. I have about 12 bucks, enough for a beer and a plate of nachos, and we listen to the halfway decent cover band playing as we are joined by Dutch, Whistler, and Sunpig. The six of us closed out the bar. I was definitely the most sober of the bunch as we went back to the room, even with a shot of SoCo from Rider. We all cooked on the porch, chatting well past midnight. I came back in to find the dog, the one that had been sprayed by a skunk, lying on my sleeping bag.I slept there in a room that night, with six stinky hikers, a stank ass dog, and the smell that kept me gagging and coughing all night, and yet I was still perfectly content. Rider and I had managed to mind two parties on two hitches on a Wednesday night in the middle of a National Park.