Date: 2012-04-07
From: Pickle Branch Shelter

To: Tinker Cliffs
Miles today: 21.9

Day 50Well, today was interesting. To start with I was in the shelter last night with Daddy-O and Bluegrass. Daddy-O I had hiked with the previous day so I was expecting him, but Bluegrass was a surprise. You can get the details from Bluegrass's journal, but long story short.... He ended up almost over dosing on caffeine, had to go to the hospital because he didn¢t realize that he had taken that much caffeine, and stayed in a nice B&B the night before. So since Bluegrass was OK, Daddy-O and I invited him to eat with us at The Home Place in Catawba today. It was 12.5 miles from the shelter to the junction of hwy 311 where we would go to the restaurant. The place didn¢t open until 3pm so we thought that we had some spare time and slept in this morning. Turns out we almost waited too long. We had a 4-mile hike before we got to a place called Dragon Tooth, then another 8 miles after that to Hwy 311. The hike to Dragons Tooth was very difficult, lots of rocks and lots of climbing so it was slower than we expected it to be. Then the climb down from Dragons Tooth was way more difficult that any of us were expecting. I had heard that it was going to be a hard climb down, but that didn¢t come close to describing it. It is a popular place with tourist and day hikers so it isn¢t impossible. However, climbing down that mountain using hands and toes was much more difficult than expected especially with a full pack on my back. The next 7 or 8 miles to the junction of hwy 311 wasn¢t much to sneeze at either. Lots of hard climb-downs and lots of rocks and narrow places to navigate which slow a person down a lot. I ended up making it to the junction of hwy 311 about an hour later than I expected to make it by taking my time, and I was going as fast as I could. So, when I got to The Home Place rather than being able to walk in and start eating we ended up having to wait 45 minutes to get a table. Man was it worth the wait. If you are ever anywhere near Catawba, VA on a Thursday ¢ Sunday you have got to make an effort to get to The Home Place. It is family stile and all you can eat (just what a hungry hiker needs). I had a mountain of food, two large Iced Teas, two large lemonades, two deserts, and a cup of coffee. So even though I had to waddle out of the restaurant, and had trouble climbing into the back of the truck that gave us a ride back to the trail, and had to waddle the first mile down the trail¢¦ I was feeling great. I was as I put it at the time, ¢hydrated, caffeinated, and had a belly full of fuel¢. Then it was on up to McAfee Knob where I sat and waited around for 30 minutes to see the sunset, spectacular. After that we hiked down to the next shelter, which was a mile away, and found that it was full. Since I was ¢hydrated, caffeinated, and had a belly full of fuel¢ I decided that I would do some night hiking. It was awesome. I don¢t think that it is something that I will be doing a lot of, but it was nice to do. I got to see the Moon rise from the top of a mountain with a clear view to the east where the Moon came up. I ended up hiking until around 10:30 and found a very nice place to pitch my tent up on top of a place called Tinker Cliffs. It was very nice because I got another nice view of the sunrise from there.