Date: 2005-06-02
From: Holiday Inn Express, Daleville 

To: Holiday Inn Express, Daleville
Miles today: 17.9
Weather: moderate rain

7:22pm - Must've Got LostFor nearly 700 miles I followed the AT faithfully, staying true to the path marked by its white blazes. Finding the trail came naturally and never caused duress. It's all been shot to hell over the last three days, though, as I fumbled like a blind man, seemingly unable to follow the trail.Tuesday started off innocently enough with an awesome sunrise atop Dragon's Tooth. I was on the trail by 7am and enjoyed the scramble down. There was even a cooler with snacks, bananas, and gatorade at the bottom of the mountain. I snagged a banana and gatorade then hiked 0.4 miles, down the road to a convenience store where I had several forms of biscuits with coffee. Getting back to the trail was a cinch - a thru-hiker from '97 noticed me and asked if I needed a ride back. Live Strong and I took her up on her offer, riding in her minivan with her dogs, one of which was named Katahdin.About a mile later I caught up with Vapors and Turbo Joe as they were just finishing packing up camp. I fell in behind Vapors and my world went to hell. Less than a half mile later the three of us stood near a creek scratching our heads. Turbo Joe piped up, "Isn't that Live Strong way up the hill?" We bushwhacked our way back to the trail and more or less followed it without incident to McAfee Knob.There's a famous AT picture of somebody sitting on a rock overhand stretching out into open space, feet dangling off the edge. That's McAfee Knob and everybody gets their picture taken on it. We didn't fail to follow the tradition. I lingered for nearly two hours, which gave ample time for the main pack to catch up. When hiking down off the knob solo I started to notice the lack of white blazes again. There had been a lot of side trails and confusing intersections as the trail wound through boulders and brush so I backtracked to the last intersection. I searched for blazes and found none. I had gotten off a trail that wasn't even the AT to begin with. I eventually backtracked to the real trail. For a change, the log across the trail was really just a log across the trail, not brush intentionally left behind to signal that the trail beyond it wasn't the AT.I reached Tinker Cliffs a few hours later with Insanely Grateful close behind. I went through a rock tunnel and wound along the base of the cliffs when I heard a voice call down, "It's worth taking the upper trail." I hollered back, "Is there a blue blaze up there?" "No - it's the AT." Once again I had strayed, this time taking another with me.The next day was better. I made it to Daleville before noon without incident and found a note at the trailhead. Phoneix and Crazy Legs had rooms at the Holiday Inn, a mere thousand feet away. I started walking there but was interrupted by Hot Crotch who directed me to the nearest Pizza Hut for lunch.I'm not sure if I've mentioned Hot Crotch before. He hiked to Damascus and then decided to leave the trail. He spent the night at my house when I came down from the Grayson Highlands, and left the next morning from Marion's Greyhound station. One can imagine my surprise when he reappeared in Pearisburg with his truck, working with Phoenix to help out hikers. Our support crew had expanded.Anyways, I decided to slackpack the 1.5 miles between Daleville and Troutville after lunch. Hot Crotch dropped me at the trailhead and and for no particular reason I ran the distance back to the motel. It was a bland stretch, running through fields right next to the interstate. I had no desire to waste half an hour on it so instead I took 13 and a half minutes, beating Hot Crotch back to the room. When he walked in, his jaw dropped. "You've got to be kidding me."The rest of the day was spent taking care of the normal town rigamarole - shower, laundry, food resupply, etc. I did go to the outfitters and buy new shoes, purchasing North Face Vapor Lights that were 40% off - a little fact that had escaped my notice until they were rung up. I didn't complain, though.The only bad thing was the weather forecast. An inch and a half of rain was forecast for today, so Crazy Legs, Ski Bum, Low Bridge and I elected to do a twenty mile slackpack southbound, hiking from Bearwallow Gap back to Daleville. A dry, warm bed at the end of the day was too tempting of an offer. To overcome my increasingly lukewarm attitude towards slackpacking, I decided to do the twenty miles as a trail run. I've never run twenty miles before and was curious if I could.As it turns out, I didn't run twenty miles today. After sixteen miles I came to a shelter and read the sign out front. It indicated that the next and previous shelters were both five miles distant. The problem, however, is that today's shelters were supposed to occur at 3.5, 10, and 17 miles. As you may notice, none of those shelters are five miles apart. I pulled out the scrap of paper on which I had written the shelter names and compared it to those on the sign. None of them matched. I thought a bit and also reailzed that the 1,700 foot climb that I had done a few miles back was much greater than the 900 foot climb that was on the elevation profile. When Crazy Legs showed up five minutes later (he was also running), I broke the news. We had just travelled sixteen miles in the wrong direction.A hiker with a map was zeroing in the shelter so we consulted with the topography gods. We discovered that the trail hit the Blue Ridge Parkway in another 2.5 miles so Crazy Legs whipped out his cell phone and called Phoenix. She answered, "So when did you discover it?" She had checked the map when she returned to the motel and discovered our mistake.We arrived at the rendezvous point forty five minutes later. Phoenix drove by forty five minutes and fifteen seconds after the phone call. It's too bad she didn't stop. However, she did come to a halt the second time, an additional fifteen wet minutes later. Somehow she failed to see the two wet, cold, stranded hikers standing in the middle of an open field.After checking her voicemail she found a few messages from Hot Crotch. The others had discovered their mistake at the second shelter ten miles in and took a blue blaze to the "It's a Wonderful Life" campground. Hot Crotch was driving the Crotch Rocket out to rescue them.We made a slight detour on the way back to pick up a section hiker walking along the roadway. He was finishing his trip and walking back to his car; we shortened his trip. We eventually returned to the motel room and swung the door wide open. Professor and Live Strong were lying in wait. Of course they knew the story of how we went wrong, but wanted to know the rest of the story. Sheepishly, we all obliged.It's now a hot shower and Cracker Barrel meal in the past, and it's actually quite amusing to us. We lucked out by having a convenient road crossing and a cell phone signal. Besides, we did get an additional eighteen miles out of the way. After attempting the twenty mile slack again tomorrow, only seventeen miles will stand between me and Glasgow. I hope.