Date: 2004-05-15
From: Pearisburg, VA

To: Symms Gap Gampsite
Miles today: 12.2

I ended up getting out a little slowly and it was after 8:30 before I checked out.I had been more than a bit tempted to follow Main Street until I met the Trail, skipping the section between there and Cross Street where I had gotten a ride. After all, there were some sections I had hiked three times and then there was that excursion to LeConte Peak. But rather than have something to regret, I dutifuly trudged up the hill to where I had left the Trail, getting there at about 9:30. I was just as glad I did. That section was steep, slippery and overgrown with poison ivy. It would not have been fair for everyone else to endure it and not me. That ethical dilemma solved, I headed over the bridge across the New River and into the woods. Next came the hard uphill slog to the top of Peters Mountain. It was made all the harder because the notes on water sources were a bit vague so I carried more than usual. The source at Pine Field Shelter was half a mile away down a steep slope, the next source a mile and a half up the Trail lacked detail so might be as bad, and the next official source was nearly ten miles away. So I topped off at a spring two miles before Rice Field, drinking all I could, filtering water into the 2 liter Platypus, filling up the filter bottle, lugging it all up the last of the climb up the mountain.At the shelter I met first one, then five more southbound section hikers. While I had an early supper thunder rumbled and I was sorely tempted to stay the night there.But that would have been only 7 miles and I needed to average at least 15 miles a day to reach US Highway 60 by the 26th. I am getting picked up from the trail to work on the stage crew at a women's music festival and want to get at least to there so they won't have to drive so far. So I packed up and headed for Symms Gap five miles away where there was supposed to be a campsite or at least a meadow free of poison ivy. At a mile and a half I found there was indeed a spring at a campsite. The thunder was getting closer and again I nearly set up my tent to avoid getting soaked, but headed on. I ran into the rather incongruious sight of a work crew right next to the Trail installing a cell phone tower. One of the workers had a small black poodle with her. I asked if it was the Foreman. They all laughed and she said the dog was to scare away the bears.About an hour away from the Gap the rain caught up with me. The sun started shining at the same time, making me think it was just the edge of the storm. Sure enough, it just sprinkled for a bit then stopped.Finally I started passing tent-worthy grassy clearings and could see what had to be the Gap with a rainbow in the background. I stopped to take a quick photo of the rainbow but a large dark cloud was moving in from the west and I knew soon it would rain for real.In the Gap I found first the small pond mentioned in the guide and then the campsite with two tents already there. It was Toe Break and Homeboy. Toe Break generously offered to hang all our food bags on his bear cord so we would not have to string cords. He noted that the cell tower crew had said a bear had been into their garbage last night. I guess we are back in bear country and I have to give up keeping my breakfast in my tent and stop using mouse hangers in the shelters. I set up my tent and not long after at about 7:00 p.m. the thunderstorm arrived.It is only the second real storm with wind gusts my tent has been in. The last time at Angel Island in San Francisco Bay. That time it nearly tried to fly away like a kite with me in it. I had had to move it in the dark to the shelter of trees.The wind direction shifts about in thunderstorms so it had been hard to decide what direction to face it. I faced the open end north, hoping to get some shelter from both the east wind that was blowing and from the west if the wind shifted. Sure enough, soon the wind shifted to the west. The awning keeps inflating like a parachute but nothing worse so far. It is raining fairly hard and the ground is rocky making driving stakes difficult so I don't want to move the tent unless I really have to.