Date: 2018-06-16
From: Bears Den Hostel

To: Harpers Ferry WV
Miles today: 19.4
Weather: broken clouds

The massive lawn outside the hostel was a great rest and I went inside the grand house to make breakfast. The caretaker provides pancake with fresh blueberries and coffee and you just whip it up yourself on the griddle and do your own dishes. I had some left over Americone Dream Ben and Jerry¢s from last night so I topped my pancakes with ice cream because I¢m an adult and no one tells me how to live. Ibex and I gathered up our gear and hit the trail again. The last bit of the roller coaster was no problem and shortly after we left it, we came upon another major milestone: the VA/WV border! In all, I had spent 43 days in Virginia and hiked just over 550 miles to get through it. It was the wettest season on record for the longest state on the trail and I was all too glad to be turning the page once more. We took a couple photos and continued on as we wanted to get into town sooner than later. After a brief lunch up on some unimpressive rocks, we churned out the final ten miles of the day. I arrived into the historic town a few minutes before ibex and rested gladly on a park bench. When she rolled up, she was adamant that we get down to the AT Conservancy office before they closed in order to get our official halfway numbers and photos taken. We made it there with five minutes to spare and implored the kindly gentleman behind the desk to oblige us and soon we had our bona fides. I had never gotten a number to begin the trail because the only office is down at Amicalola Falls which is the approach trail. I got dropped directly at Springer Mt the morning I began and thus had not gotten a tag. I am officially thru hiker number 825 this season to pass through Harpers Ferry. That¢s a lot of people ahead of me and if rumors are to be believed there¢s an even larger bubble of people behind. I also marveled at the 3D relief map inside that shows the entire trail and it¢s elevation gains. New Hampshire and southern Maine look like the business but for that matter i was seriously impressed with how much we had been tested in GA, NC, and TN. We¢ve come a long way. The immediate future looks pretty flat and hopefully that means chewing up some easy mileage although I have a feeling the trail won¢t make it too easy.Once we had finished, we contacted Tumblina via text. She is a former thru hiker that runs an as-yet-unofficial hostel across the street from the ATC. Word of mouth brought us there and for $20/night it was a perfect spot to bunk in town for our planned zero tomorrow. We walked over and met her and she welcomed us in and we threw down our stuff and headed over to the pizza place to meet Chef. I also grabbed some beers at the LQ and we ate and cheered to our many recent milestones as well as chefs crazy 50 mile achievement. He was still feeling frazzled and tired so we didn¢t stay out long. Once back at the hostel, we took care of showers and combined a load of laundry. It wasn¢t long before we all were ready to crash. It sounds like Glow stick is going to make it here by noon tomorrow and we will spend some time relaxing and exploring town before probably getting back out later the next day.