Date: 2016-05-04
From: Pearisburg VA

To: Pickle Branch Shelter
Miles today: 60.5
Weather: few clouds

Pearisburg VA to Pickle Branch Shelter5/4/16 end mileage 654.1   Left Pearisburg this morning and soon crossed the New River on an interstate highway bridge next to a big factory of some kind. As soon as we entered the woods and began to climb we could see the aftermath of a violent hail storm that had passed through two days before. It missed Pearisburg but we could see the damage on the trail almost all day. There was leaf debris and small branches all over the ground and some of the trees looked like they'd had their leaves almost completely stripped. I had talked with some hikers the day before who had been caught out in the storm and some of them had had their tents destroyed by the hail the size of golf balls.    The weather was pretty good most of the day but by the time we got to our shelter, Pine Swamp Branch, it was looking like it would rain soon so the shelter was full shortly after we got there. This is a nice shelter and we had a good crowd of fun hikers so we had a good time there. This turned out to be the last we would see of Learning Curve because I learned a couple of days later that he hurt his leg or foot and had to get off the trail for a while. 5/5/16 end mileage 672.6   Today is my Mom's birthday. Happy birthday Mom. I hope it was a good one!   We left Pine Swamp Branch Shelter in a steady rain, looking at an 18.5 mile day. Not only was it raining but the temperature had dropped considerably during the night. Some of the people in the shelter were considering taking a zero day there because of the weather. That may have been a wise decision. The first thing Caboose and I had to do was a 1700 foot climb and the higher we got, the lower the temperature dropped. It wasn't long before the rain had turned into a steady snow and was collecting on the ground. We were both already wet and I got so cold that I couldn't work my fingers correctly and was shivering quite a bit. We eventually went back down that mountain and warmed up a little. I thought we should stop at the first shelter we came to and just get in our sleeping bags and get warm. But caboose talked me out of it anod so we pressed on over another mountain but this time there was no more snow and we got to Laurel Creek Shelter without freezing. There were times today that I was really afraid one of us might develop hypothermia if we didn't get warmed up. What really got me through the day was repeating my friend Betsy's advice to myself: "you will get warmer" and "you will get dry". Thanks Betsy. 5/6/16 end mileage 695.1   Today dawned a little foggy but it cleared off and turned into a nice day. Early on in the day we hiked through some very nice farm country and through some pastures with cattle in them. We passed the largest oak tree on the trail in the south, which is called the Keffer Oak. Then we crossed the Eastern Continental Divide, where the water on the west side flows to the Gulf of Mexico and on the east side it flows to the Atlantic. Then we came to the Audie Murphy Monument, a monument to the man who was the most decorated veteran of the Second World War. The monument was put up by the VFW near the site where Audie Murphy died in a plane crash in 1971.    Today's destination was Pickle Branch Shelter. It looked like a normal shelter but according to the shelter log it was full of mice and big spiders. This discouraged everyone from sleeping in it but me. So I had the whole shelter to myself...and the mice, who started having a little party as soon as I went to bed. And of course, not being a big fan of spiders I decided to just not look for them. But I did have to keep my sleeping bag zipped all the way up and sometimes my head under the covers just to ensure that the vast herds of marauding giant arachnids didn't attack me. Of course, I never actually saw a spider, but the suggestion was there and that's all I needed. So I spent a hot, sweaty, mostly sleepless night based on what somebody had written in the shelter log.