Date: 2012-06-04
From: Sam Moore Shelter

To: Harpers Ferry, WV
Miles today: 22.5
Weather: overcast clouds

This morning I got up before everyone else at 6:00am. I wanted to get up and finish the roller coster before it got hot out so I was packed up and on the trail by 7:00am. I had five more climbs to do before I was out of the roller coster and after that it was all ridge line. I climbed up and back down the first two climbs and got to a four lane road crossing. I caught up to Sting Ray there...he stayed at a hostel three miles passed the shelter last night. The road was very busy with cars; I guess everyone was going to work. It took us four tries but we finally got an opening big enough to run across to the other side. The third climb started on the other side of the road and we started up together. I got out ahead of Sting Ray and finished the roller coster! On the top of the last climb, I crossed over into West Virginia...finally! Good bye Virginia! I took a break there to celebrate and ate a snickers; soon Sting Ray came up the hill. The trail followed the ridge line for the rest of the day so I made good time and I soon caught up to Trek, a section hiker, taking a break on a log; I joined him. Sting Ray caught back up but passed by because he wanted to get to town before everything closed. Trek went with Sting Ray while I stayed a little longer then continued on. I got to the shelter at around 12:45pm and ran into Trek and Sting Ray. Sting Ray did not stay long and soon headed into town. This shelter was one of the nicest one I have seen yet. It had a big porch with Adirondack chairs, a pavillion with a table, a porch swing, fire place and split wood. The plan was to hike past the shelter to a camp site just before town but I do not know when Big Sky and Catfish got up so we may end up staying here. At around 3:00pm Strollin' and Jaws arived at the shelter and said they were going to take a short break then go to a pizza shop that was .3 miles off the trail then head to the same camp site for the night. I liked that idea and decided to go with them. I told Trek to tell Big Sky and Catfish that I went on to eat and I would meet them either at the campsite or in town tomorrow. But right as we were about to leave, they came around the corner so we waited for them to take a short break and then the five of us headed to the pizza shop together. We got to the restaurant at around 4:30pm and had our fill. We sat around a bit and we all decided to try and get to town tonight rather than camp out. We were back on the trail by 5:45pm and arrived at the camp site at 6:30pm. We called the Economy Lodge and reserved two rooms and continued on. We ran into Hudini who was going to attempt the four state challenge tomorrow which is hiking from just across the Va/Wv border and hike to Pa which means he would have hiked in Va, Wv, Md and Pa all in one day and it about 48 miles so we wished him good luck and continued on. We got into town at around 8:15pm and got our rooms. We had to hurry and do our laundry before it closed at 9:00pm so we were very busy. We were all hungry again, even though we just ate three hours ago. We called a local pizza shop and ordered some more food before they closed. We were all once again stuffed and decided to call it a night at around 10:45pm. Tomorrow we will finish out Wv and start into Md so its time for bed...night all.