Date: 2003-06-07
From: VA 606 (Trent's Campground)

To: Doc's Knob Shelter
Miles today: 16.1
Weather: heavy intensity rain

Craig says...It has begun. The seventh seal has been broken. Noah is scurrying around gathering driftwood to build his ark. Chipmunks are hoarding cheekfulls of nuts and stuffing them in their holes. Cats are hiding under porches and diningroom table. Frogs are falling from the sky. Old, blind,longbearded, prophets are wandering the streets screaming incomprehensible passages from revelations and saying "Na na na na na! I told you! I told you this would happen!" Well, it wasn't really that bad but it was raining pretty hard this morning.After grabbing all our stuff and packing on the dirty floor of the cement bath house, we wandered back into Trent's and ordered coffee. Hiking sticks and backpacks drapped with raincovers leaned against the bench outside. Inside we all huddled at the small breakfast tables drinking hot coffee and staring squeemishly out at the rain. You could tell by the morose faces,soaked clothing ,and mud strewn calves whom had just arrived this morning. Those of us who'd stayed the previous night were dry and clean and wanted to stay that way as long as possible. We all sat their, talking occasionally but mostly silent, waiting for the rain to let up or for some brave soul to make the first move and make us look bad. Boogey took on the challenge. She stood up from her chair, threw on her large thin poncho, hoisted her pack, said goodbye to us all, and tromped out into the sheets of rain and rivulettes of water. The old guy with brown beard just shook his head and gruffly stated. "I'm staying another day." Erin and I used her departure as motivation and decided that if we were going to hike the sixteen or so miles that we had planned, the window of time was slowly closing. We too put on the jackets, threw on the packs and reluctantly headed out of the warm dry store and into the wet world outside.It seemed to let up for a while as we walked down the road towards the trail. And we both silently hoped it wouldn't start back up again. The trail zigzagged through dense brush and it didn't take long before our socks and shoes were soaked. We played a muddy game of tag with Boogey, first catching her at a sign for Dismal Falls where she was searching for her lost partner Ladybug, and finally concluding at Wapiti Shelter where we met up with Slack and Emily, a couple from Vermont and eventually everyone else who'd been couped up back at Trent's. Everyone stood around in the shelter wringing out their socks and shirts and pouring water out of their boots. "The sun'll come out around 4:30," I said confidently. I no facts or proof of this of course. We stayed for quite a while, eating powerbars and reminiscing with Slack and Emily about New England and what we missed about it. Microbrew beers, coffee houses, etc. We were the first ones to leave the shelter this time.The sun never came out. It remained a steady drizzle as it always does when the forcast calls for isolated showers and T-Storms. It remained a steady drizzle that is until we reached the highest climb of the day whereas it opened up for the third time today and brought a fierce display of thunder and lightning with it. Erin and I trudged through the mud and rocks while the lightning struck nearby. I was hoping that it was getting further away but it did the opposite. Each rumble of thunder was closer to the strike. And we were steadily climbing higher. I began to feel a little panic."Erin!" I yelled ahead. "We need to get off this ridge!" She agreed and we sprinted off the spine and bushwacked down about two hundred yards under the semi-protection of some trees. And when I thought it couldn't rain any harder. It rained harder. And there we stood. For an hour. The lightning seemed to have ceased any sort of momentum and just hovered above us, unleashing it's electrical fury and dumping enormous amounts of water on us earthly beings. Standing dumb in the middle of the forest while streams of water poured into our clothes, we couldn't help but feel helpless. We could feel the heat being sucked from our bones. We were quiet, our ears busy with the deafening constant sound of unending rain pelting the leaves, earth, and the nylon fabric of our soaking jackets. We occasionally jolted out of our dazed, transfixed state by interspersed claps of thunder. Eventually we did make it camp. We decided to risk it and hike on regardless of the lightning, skirting around the edge of huge fields, hoping that our stories wouldn't end on a mountaintop in Va. And it didn't. The rain kept on thoughout the day and finished just as we reached the shelter. Suddenly flecks of gold drifted by my feet and I looked up to see spots of blue in the sky. "The sun did come out" I thought. Erin looked at her watch "6:30" Close. We reached the shelter and pitched the tent inside because there was nowhere but patches of thick mud to set up otherwise. We wrung out our socks the best we could and hung up everything on the mouse wires to dry. It looked like we were going to have a shelter to ourselves for the second time on this trip.