Date: 2018-06-24
From: Riprap Trail Stealth Site

To: Waynesboro, VA
Miles today: 17.6

Distance 17.6 miAscent: 3138 ftDecent: 4211 ftToday was the most challenging day for both of us. As you can see from the numbers we climbed and descended almost twice what we normally do. In addition we walked two days worth of miles. We did this because we wanted to get to town a day early. We have been dealing with rain, bugs, and mud since Lewis Mountain Campground, and just wanted to get clean. We ate breakfast and left camp by 8 am. Nothing had bothered our bear cans during the night, so that was nice. The hike was pretty uneventful, no views and no water, until we got to mile 9 near Calf Mountain. It was here that Jessica had a close encounter with a bear. She was taking a picture of a plant, and heard a crashing noise. As she looked up, a bear ran through the woods, passing about 10 ft from her. She was so scared she couldn't even scream. She thought it was charging her. As it turned out, it was just running and went past without incident, however, she had a major shock. When I caught up with her, she was still standing there breathing heavy, and partially crying. However, as she told the story, she starting laughing, so she is fine.As we were climbing Calf Mountain, we started hearing thunder in the distance. We knew another afternoon storm had formed and was approaching. Unfortunately, you can only climb so fast, so we reconciled with being wet again. However, we seemed to be right on the edge of it. As we climbed, we could feel the pressure change and heard the wind roaring down on us. It was so odd though to get hit with the wall of wind (it felt like when you get hit by a wave in the ocean) and not get hit by the rain. Well the wind kept coming, but no rain, so we kept climbing. A few minutes later we got to the shelter path. Half way down I heard the sound change and knew rain was chasing us. I told Jessica to run and we did. The downpour began 2 seconds after we got under the shelter awning. So lucky! It was an amazing experience. We spent the next 45 minutes dry and out of the rain, chatting with the 4 hikers who were there. We made it 10.5 miles to Calf Mountain Shelter by 3 pm. We had now left the Shenandoah National Park.We left the shelter at 3:45pm and began that last 7.1 miles of our trip. Let us just say that the last 7 miles may not look like much on a profile map, but was the hardest stretch of trail we have encountered yet. It looked like the trails in Vermont and NH - no switch backed trails, boulders everywhere, very strenuous. We had a couple of good views, but it was a struggle. For instance, lets say that you are going down a quarter mile street and you will descend 100 ft in the process. Then throw in four 6ft boulders to climb over and a 30 foot straight up section in the process. The profile map will just show a slanted line with a little squiggle in the middle. But when you have to climb over the squiggle, it isn't so little, especially after 14 miles of hiking. Jessica was very encouraging, she wanted to make it even though she was sore and hurting too. We made the end, Rockfish Gap by 8:45 pm. We walked over to the info center and tried to decide what to do. I had prayed for help for the last 2 miles, and 30 seconds after reaching the info center, Frank, a day hiker offered to help us. The more time you spend out in the woods, the more you have faith in God. We got to the hotel and into our room by 9:30 pm. Looking forward to 2 zero days.