Date: 2008-04-26
From: Unnamed Campsite VA

To: Pinefield Hut VA
Miles today: 22.8
Weather: few clouds

Day 69 ¢ Saturday April 26 ¢ Pinefield Hut VA ¢ Miles Today: 22.8 Total Miles: 883.7Around 8 or 9 last night the rain stopped and we awoke this morning to a fairly dry tent! We were on the trail a bit before 6:00 a.m. It's a good thing Brakeman paid attention as to where we pulled off to our campsite last night because Grasshopper would have headed off in the wrong direction. She thought our campsite was off to the left and it was actually off to the right. We would have been going south this morning if Grasshopper were in the lead. Good job, Brakeman!!We enjoy the morning hikes with these unseasonably warm temperatures. This morning it was 59 degrees when we started hiking. We hiked for about 3 hours before the heat of the day arrived. At one point in time today when we looked at the thermometer in the sun, it read 99 degrees! We envision that it was probably reading higher than that at other points in time during the day.We're not overly impressed with the forest so far in Shenandoah. It¢s very scraggly, unhealthy and some of it's just plain dead. We understand that there's not a ton of views here but it's just the actual surroundings that are not very pretty. I'm sure Skyline Drive is much more gorgeous than the AT corridor. The wildflowers are at a minimum here as well, but the deer are plentiful. We probably saw 4 deer today. We did not see any other thru-hikers today.We had been thinking that Trail Magic in Shenandoah National Park would most likely be non-existent as there is an admission fee to enter the Park. Folks aren¢t going to pay an admission fee to drop off Trail Magic. But boy were we surprised today when we came to another Skyline Drive parking area and found 2 boxes of Food Lion granola bars laying in the grass for us. It was just too good to be true! Not to worry, we did save some for the next group. They were delicious! We ate 2 right away and saved the rest for later in the day. After eating our granola bars, the ominous and scary black clouds, which we had been eyeing, opened up. It was funny because Brakeman and a southbound hiker we had just passed said that the storm would miss us. Yeah, right!   Wrong! We were in a Skyline Drive parking lot when they let loose. A van pulled into the lot, looked at us and kept going. I¢m sure they had a few comments about what was about to happen to us and they were most likely right ¢ we were going to get soaked! Grasshopper was frantically getting the rain gear out of the backpack and putting it on. Despite the imminent downpour, Brakeman was just standing there in the parking lot with his backpack still on swatting at the biting black flies. He was not even thinking about getting his rain gear on until Grasshopper hollered, ¢FOCUS¢ and threw his rain gear at him! But anyway, back to the black flies.   We hope their life cycle is very short and that we're done with them soon, as they are very annoying. We¢ve had them for the past few days. They especially like Brakeman for some reason, as most bugs do. About 1.5 miles from camp the rain turned into a huge thunder and lightning storm that was basically right over us. The heavy part of the storm with the thunder and lightning lasted about 20 minutes. As a lightning bolt struck right near us, Grasshopper turned around with a big grin on her face and said to Brakeman, "Are you nervous?" He said, "Of course I'm nervous, aren't you?" Grasshopper said, "Well, no¢ and started to sing, "Singing in the rain, she's singing in the rain". Brakeman figures where the lightning bolt struck could have measured in yards from us. It was light and sound together. The storm was right over us and we had just walked up to the ridgeline! Not the place to be when it is storming! By the time the storm had passed, we were coming down off the ridgeline. Our timing could have been better! The storm dumped a lot of water on the trail. It was basically a stream. I'm sure tomorrow we'll have quite a bit of slushy trail as well. It had stopped raining by the time we got to camp. The tent area around the shelter was jam packed with 3 tents. The pickings for us were slim until we noticed that the official tent sites were up the hill. We set up camp, and visited with the weekend hikers around the picnic table while eating our dinners. One gentleman hopes to be a 2010 thru-hiker. They asked us the normal questions and then commented on the amount of food we were eating, saying, ¢You¢re basically just sitting there eating anything and everything.¢ ¢Yep¢, we responded, ¢we¢re trying to put on a few pounds as last week was tough on us.¢ Just today we ate a full batch of brownies, some homemade chocolate chip cookies, some delicious Cajun salty snack mix, and some dark chocolate with macadamia nuts and cranberries. And that's just the beginning of the special treats that were mailed to us. Hopefully the damage that we did to ourselves last week is getting quickly reversed this week. We are eating much, much more and we still have tons of food left due to all the goodies that were mailed to us! Another group of weekend hikers arrived after dinner and mentioned that a lightening bolt struck a tree right beside them as they hiked. They could see the smoke coming out of the tree! Wow, that was a close call!By the time we crawled into our tent, our rain gear was dry, as we had worn it around camp. Our socks were soaked, of course, as well as our shoes. About 8:00 a short shower arrived. The forecast, apparently, is for showers on and off all night long. It's supposed to be cooler tomorrow and hopefully dry. We have a 20-mile day planned tomorrow so we're looking forward to another early start, cooler temps, and hopefully dry weather. We¢d also like to get to camp and get the rest of our things dried and the dampness removed. It¢s 8:00 and our bodies are tired. The 23 miles was a long day. About 20 miles into it, the bottoms of our feet were tired and sore and we were hoping to be to camp soon. Luckily shortly thereafter the thunder and lightning storm arrived adding adrenalin to our bodies and enabling us to haul the last 1.5 miles fairly quickly to camp without thinking about our feet. Our minds are also tired from the socializing this evening. We¢re just tired, all over! It's about 65 degrees, the rain has paused for a little bit and we are ready to crash. Goodnight from Shenandoah.