Date: 2008-04-29
From: Not so Legal Campsite VA

To: Gravel Springs Hut VA
Miles today: 21.4
Weather: overcast clouds

Day 72 ¢ Tuesday April 29 ¢ Gravel Springs Hut VA ¢ Miles Today: 21.4 Total Miles: 944.2The night was quiet; no rangers came by to bust us for pitching our tent literally in the middle of the trail. However, we must have made one deer upset as it was snorting its nose right outside the tent for a little bit but then it moved on. We must have been on his path!We had another early start because we had 21 miles to cover today. We were up at 5:00 and were on the trail by about 6:00. It did not rain last night but just as we finished breaking camp this morning, the sprinkles arrived. Not a problem as we were mentally prepared for them. It seems that the wet, gray and misty days come in packs of 6 in Virginia. It was much colder this morning - in the low 40s and again everything was very damp and wet. The tent rain fly was drenched as all get out. We headed out about 6:00 and for the next several hours we had every single weather element possible. It rained, then it sleeted, and then it actually snowed! We had enough snow to accumulate a little around the rock edges on the ground. The snowflakes were huge at times. It was actually quite nice; it was a nice change from the rain that we have been having. However, as we have learned from the Weather Channel, a spring snow is 3 times wetter than a winter snow, so it drenched us. We are finding that our rain gear is no longer waterproof. Both of our rain pants leak a bit so that after 3 or 4 hrs in the rain, our shorts are damp. Brakeman¢s rain jacket also leaks a bit, causing his shirt to get damp after a rain. And then of course our Gortex gloves get very wet inside. I'm really not quite sure why we're spending all this money for Gortex products when after several hours in the rain they no longer keep the water out. Maybe we just need to request the weatherman to send all rain in less than 2 hour chunks so that we stay dry.Between 10:00 and 11:00, we started to see spots of blue in the sky! What an unusual sighting for us! We took a lunch break around noon and saw quite a bit of blue, got cocky and took off some of the rain gear, hiked a little bit, saw more blue, took off more of the rain gear, looked up a few minutes later and about 75% of the sky was gray again. Dang, how¢d that happen? But it never rained again so we weren¢t complaining about losing our blue sky. With the gray sky came the wind. Although we had stripped down to T-shirts and shorts, we slowly started putting the gear back on - first the hat, then the neck gaiter, then the #1 tops, then the gloves and by the time we got to camp, the long pants, the rain jackets. We ran into a couple from Wilmington NC. She works at UNCW and knows the swim and diving coaches! We asked her to pass on our ¢hellos¢ to them for us. The hiker¢s names were Pokey (her) and Sketches (his). They are probably in their 50s and seemed like a real nice couple. They just started in Harper's Ferry a couple weeks ago and are going south to Georgia in about a 3-month time period. Should be a nice leisurely pace for them. We told them that Josh and Amanda are behind us and asked them to request Thin Mints when they see them. Sketches really got the whole trash talking concept. He asked us if we also wanted Josh and Amanda to be told that we were in Harper's Ferry already, making it sound like we are 3-4 days further up the trail! We only spent about 10 minutes chatting with them as we had miles to do and it was getting a little chilly. Before leaving, they told us that it¢s supposed to get down into the 30s tonight.   Our minds thought, ¢No problem¢, though I don¢t think Pokey and Sketches were quite mentally prepared for the colder temps, as they have not had them yet.We arrived at camp just before 5:00, averaging better than 2 mph with breaks. We had both a breakfast break and a lunch break today, as well as our normal 16 million breaks to adjust clothing layers. Even though it was a 21-mile day, it did not seem too difficult, most likely due to the extra breaks, some moments of sun and the fact that the shoes are finally broken in! But let the record be noted, Grasshopper still does not really care to do any more 20-mile days, to which Brakeman just rolls his eyes. Believe it or not, we are heading into town tomorrow and we still have food in our food bag! This is the first time in probably a month that we have headed into town with food. Thanks to Laura's huge care package as well as Sandy's package, we have been eating like Kings and Queens this week! We still have a couple granola bars, maybe a bite-sized Snickers, and a few spoonfuls of peanuts left.   That's in addition to the food that we plan on eating for the 14 miles into Front Royal tomorrow. We have decided to spend a night in Front Royal even though it will be a very short rest stop for us. We have a 14-mile hike to town, a 4-mile hitch and we need to hit both the post office and the grocery store. The first shelter heading out of town is 5 more miles. We thought a 19-mile day with 2 hitches and stops at both the Post Office and grocery store would make it too long of a day for us. We hope for a mid-afternoon arrival to the motel. We'll check out of the motel first thing in the morning as we've got 15 miles to do and we can't wait around too long. It's 7:00 and 48 degrees. We had a quick dinner, as it was quite chilly. We're bundled up ready for the cool night. We¢ll hit the trail running at 5:30 tomorrow. Goodnight from nearly out of Shenandoah. Wahoo!!