Date: 2017-06-07
From: Dick's Dome Shelter

To: Bear's Den Hostel
Miles today: 18.3
Weather: overcast clouds

Again not a terribly early morning, we hit the trail by 8. The trail wound up and through Sky Meadows state park, which I've visited before to watch meteor showers away from the DC lights. The sun shown down on me as I hiked across several meadows in the park... Couldn't ask for a better morning walk.The meadow gradually transitioned back to forest, first a tree or two dotting the grass, then a few more starting to fill the sky, until the grass could no longer grow and gave way to standard undergrowth. We hiked along and eventually crossed Rt 50, a substantial 4 lane road, and headed back into the woods. Not long after we passed the trailhead the DCUL's mobile trail magic trip had ended last year, and the spot where Faceplant, BA, I, and several others had waited for the shuttle to be reversed. I headed back into known territory, landmarks like streams and hills starting to ring bells again, though I'm the opposite direction that I had hiked last time. We stopped at a shelter for elevensies and in the course of packing up I left one of my water bottles behind (I'd discover 4mi later)... Whoops. I think the saying is "Never get on rollercoaster with full stomach", but that's just what we did, starting our ride on the 13mi of constant ups and downs that gave this section of trail it's name. It's not the severity of hills that characterizes this section, it's the number, and we quickly checked off 4 climbs of ~500ft each. As I hiked I found the place BA gave away his last beer and the campsite we had met Moxie and Sunshine at during the trip last year. Though the weather had held for the morning, the sky soon started to cloud over with dark clouds and finally a chilly rain started to fall. As if specially arranged for us, it was at this moment that we reached the 1000mi mark, complete with rain commemorate all the precipitation we had already walked though to get here. We didn't stay long to celebrate and quickly headed down to the next shelter, not far down the trail. Our miles 2/3 done for the day, there wasn't any point in getting wet unless we wanted to (and we didn't), so we took a long break in the shelter to let the rain pass. We ended up waiting 2hr, during which time we participated in our favorite activities, eating and sleeping, before finally deciding to push on. The rain had passed but the trees were still doing their part to help, but there wasn't any way to avoid that.We had another 2 moderate climbs, including the site of last year's sweaty hug from a thru hiker after he received magic, until we reached the hostel. Bear's Den Hostel is an old stone building built to resemble a European castle back in the 30's. The ATC/PATC manage a hostel and trail center in the building now, giving hikers a place to stay and providing info for shorter distance hikers.Lookout and I had agreed to stop and get some food before finishing the rollercoaster, another 4mi, today so I ducked inside and got a pizza. I was sitting in the meal area waiting for it to cook and didn't see Lookout for 15 or so minutes and started to get worried that he had somehow missed both of the signed turnoffs for the hostel, since he had been hiking ahead of me. Just as my pizza finished he popped out of the bunkroom, where he had been hanging out.It didn't take much convincing and suddenly we were staying here for the night. Staying came with, in addition to the pizza, a shower, laundry, a pint of ice cream, and a soda, all of which we took advantage of thoroughout the evening.