Date: 2006-06-01
From: Thunder Hill Shelter

To: Punchbowl Shelter
Miles today: 25.1
Weather: scattered clouds

Arghh! It took about an hour and twenty minutes to hitch into the town of Glasgow, VA today. The town's about six miles off the trail, so I almost could have walked there in the time it took to catch a ride. Sometimes it's like that though. As it turned out, on my way back to the trail it only took about 2 minutes to Arghh! It took about an hour and twenty minutes to hitch into the town of Glasgow, VA today. The town's about six miles off the trail, so I almost could have walked there in the time it took to catch a ride. Sometimes it's like that though. As it turned out, on my way back to the trail it only took about 2 minutes to catch a ride. The guy who stopped for me met his wife at Bible school in NY, just like my parents. Small world...Glasgow is a small town with hardly any services. The grocery was tiny and I had to scrounge to come up with some suitable hiker food. The library wasn't crowded at all though, so I had a computer to myself almost 'til closing time. After six hours off the trail, I had to book it to make my destination by dark. I think I set a new speed record for that mountain! I ended up doing like 11 miles (including about 2000' of vertical elevation gain) in 3 hours. The vertical elevation gain is definitely not to be ignored. A common rule of thumb is to add 1 mile for every 1000' gained in vertical elevation. I guess that makes sense. Roughly 5000' in a mile, so at a 20% grade you would take five steps to gain a vertical foot. Where was I going with this? I have no idea.Let me put it another way. Suppose you have a 19 story skyscraper. Imagine, if you will, climbing the stairwell from the ground floor to the roof. You'd be kinda pooped at the end, right? You've just climbed two HUNDRED feet. Take the elevator down and do it four more times. There, now you've climbed a thousand vertical feet. Repeat another five times and you've climbed 2000 vertical feet. There are lots of 2000' climbs on the AT, and several over 3000'. So you see how hiking the at compares to your average stair-climber workout.catch a ride. The guy who stopped for me met his wife at Bible school in NY, just like my parents. Small world...Glasgow is a small town with hardly any services. The grocery was tiny and I had to scrounge to come up with some suitable hiker food. The library wasn't crowded at all though, so I had a computer to myself almost 'til closing time. After six hours off the trail, I had to book it to make my destination by dark. I think I set a new speed record for that mountain! I ended up doing like 11 miles (including about 2000' of vertical elivation gain) in 3 hours. The vertical elevation gain is definitely not to be ignored. A common rule of thumb is to add 1 mile for every 1000' gained in vertical elevation. I guess that makes sense. Roughly 5000' in a mile, so at a 20% grade you would take five steps to gain a vertical foot. Where was I going with this? I have no idea.Let me put it another way. Suppose you have a 19 story skyscraper. Imagine, if you will, climbing the stairwell from the ground floor to the roof. You'd be kinda pooped at the end, right? You've just climbed two HUNDRED feet. Take the elevator down and do it four more times. There, now you've climbed a thousand vertical feet. Repeat another five times and you've climbed 2000 vertical feet. There are lots of 2000' climbs on the at, and several over 3000'. So you see how hiking the at compares to your average stair-climber workout.