Date: 2015-07-01
From: Edward B. Garvy Memorial Shelter

To: Pine Knob Shelter
Miles today: 16.6
Weather: broken clouds

I was up early, before anyone else, and cooked my oatmeal with trail mix and olive oil and a cup of coffee. Soon I was packed up and on the trail at twilight without waking the couple at the shelter. I stopped for a break and to read all of the plaques and take many pictures at the Gathland State Park. I liked the history of the place with the Memorial to the War Correspondents which is a large stone archway type structure in the style of the Arch de triumph in Paris. It is all a part of the Civil War Trails. Most of the property is intact except for the main house which was in in ruins and just a foundation as is a barn. I refilled my water here and rested for awhile taking in the sights and history. Then it was up and away past the Crampton Gap shelter to the view at the White Rock Cliffs and then to the tower at Lambs Knoll which offered great views. On my way down from White Cliffs I passed the Rocky Run Shelter and the Reno Monument at Fox Gap where 2 high ranking generals, one Union and One Confederate perished in a battle. Each had a monument although the Union memorial was much larger and fancier as would be expected in the north. On the other side of the street I found trail magic in the form of beer in a bag beside the road in the bushes! I gratefully threw away the trash and packed the beers in my pack. Then upon entering the Washington Monument state park, there were so many Wineberries that I stopped and ate my self silly before moving on. I liked that the trail had plaques about the life of George Washington as you approached the George Washington Memorial tower. I was disappointed as the tower was closed due to a recent lightning strike which hospitalized two hikers and damaged the building! It actually blew one of the hikers out of the building from the explosion and concussion! The hikers lived although had to be taken to the emergency room and to intensive care before recovering. There was a hike through a residential area and the I-70 footbridge to cross before the Pine Knob Shelter. It was a nice hike to the Pine Knob Shelter where I stopped due to the storm clouds that were quickly approaching, rumbling and turning the daylight into dusk. I knew that I couldn't make it to the next shelter before the storm hit so I stopped at this shelter. Soon after Hands N Mouth showed up at the shelter who also seeing the approaching storm decided to stop for the night. Going for water I had put my beer below the spring to cool off. At dinner I was drinking a beer when a park ranger came up and gave me a break for the beer as, apparently it's against the park rules. I told him that I had picked the beer up along the road and would take care of the trash. He warned us about a severe storm on the way before moving on down the trail. As I saftied up, I checked and confirmed it on my 1weather app. It looked like a really nasty storm was on the way with all sorts of bright colors on the radar. Soon after a group of 11 young Quaker teenagers and 4 older teens in their late teens supervising set up in a bad location for the approaching storm. Hands N Mouth and I warned the group of the coming storm letting them know that if the worst happened they could join us in the small shelter. Hands and Mouth let them know that they were in a run off zone where all the water in the area would concentrate in a stream through their area in heavy rain - right where they had set up their tarps hanging from the trees, and their sleeping pads and bags on the ground. They told us that they would be ok and continued set up. It began to rain and we offered to help them get set up but they said that they had it under control so we watched from the shelter. At about 10:00, all hell broke loose and with a blast from a lightening bolt near the shelter and the storm broke upon the shelter and blasted the kids under the tarps with some hail and driving rain. Hands and I looked at each other and grabbed our rain gear and he beat me out of the shelter heading for the kids camp as he only had a poncho. They were huddling miserably from the driving rain going sideways under the tarp and some were sitting in a small stream. Hands found the leaders helpless and lost and ordered everyone, in his Marine Corps voice, into the shelter telling the supervisors that the conditions were dangerous so we had 18 people piled into the shelter meant for 6. They were dry which was the important thing although the shelter had a few pinhole sized leaks. We got the coldest of the children into warm sleeping bags that were dry, some sharing and all had to lay on their sides in this tiny shelter, but fit we did and all were safe and mostly dry for the rest of the night as the storm raged outside.