Date: 2017-05-23
From: Knot Maul Branch Shelter 

To: Jenkins Shelter
Miles today: 20.1
Weather: overcast clouds

5/23Knot Maul Branch Shelter to Jenkins Shelter 20.1 miles Total miles:  578.8Today was quite a day. There was a storm last night which had ended by the time I got up at 6:00.  I slept well and felt really good this morning. I was on the trail by 7:30. The rain began again less than ten minutes after I started hiking. It was great that it held off long enough for me to get packed up.  I started by hiking up and over Lynn Camp Mountain, which is small and presented little difficulty. At the end of the descent, the trail crosses Lick Creek on a very nice foot bridge. Next up was Chestnut Knob, which is the first major mountain we've climbed in awhile. The elevation increased a little over 2,000 feet over four miles. The trail was good, and the rain let up at about 9:00, so it was a nice climb. A good part of the mountain is pasture, and there would have been nice views except for the fog.  Chestnut Knob Shelter is located at the top of the mountain. It is a unique shelter built of stone and fully enclosed. Go Chill and her trail dog, Sir Barks-a-Lot, were making lunch outside the shelter when I got there. I had met them previous to Trail Days and passed them by.  They skipped Trail Days, so I got to see them again.  She told me she had been able to download some podcasts, so I checked my phone. I had service and was able to add the past two entries to my journal. I added one photo for each day, but stopped there because I still had miles I wanted to hike. I thought I might have service tonight (I didn't).  I ate lunch inside the shelter with Lost, River, and Fireproof. Other hikers arrived while we were eating, including Gravity, who I have camped with a few times.  The rain resumed while I was eating.  It started back up around one o'clock as is still at it as I write this at 10:15 pm.  After leaving the shelter, I had a nice walk in the rain to Walker Gap, and then things got truly interesting. For the next five miles, a glance at the Guidebook would lead you to believe it would be easy, since there is no real elevation change. Don't ever forget to check out the little squiggly lines on the topo map.  If I wanted to give someone a taste of the first quarter of the AT, I would take them on this five mile hike, especially in a cold, unrelenting rain like today. It was like AT 101, a smorgasbord of all the trail conditions we have encountered. There were extremely steep ascents and descents, many of them muddy and slippery.  There were also more moderate ascents and descents, although very little flat trail. There was trail full of rocks, rock scrambling over jumbles of various size boulders, crossing large, rain-slickened rocks tilted at 45 degree angles, and clamboring across the sides of bluffs.  For good measure, there were numerous logs of various sizes across the trail. None of these examples lasted very long, although they certainly repeated themselves often enough. It felt like an obstacle course, or maybe the Reader's Digest Condensed AT.  I was fascinated by all the samples, although, I will admit, I was quite happy to see the end of it when the trail reached VA 623, a gravel road. Unfortunately, I have no photos of the obstacle course, since my phone was triple protected from the elements in the belt pouch of my pack. The last four and a half miles into camp were more typical, and I arrived at 6:45, having hiked 20.1 miles.  Many shelters have an overhang or a porch which allow hikers to complete chores out of the rain, but not Jenkins Shelter. Not surprisingly, the sleeping area was packed full, and the picnic table sits out in the rain. I had no plan on sleeping in the shelter, but it is nice to have a dry spot to regroup. I was able to get my tent up and my equipment inside with very little water getting into the tent, despite setting it up in a steady downpour.  My pack and hiking pants are in the vestibule  (my pants legs are pretty much a muddy mess) while the other clothes I wore today are in my extra plastic trash bag. I opted to not cook tonight but had plenty of other things to eat. My plan is to hike 11 miles tomorrow to US Highway 52 and get a shuttle into Bland for resupply and to get my clothes washed.  I'll leave Bland the next day headed for Pearisburg.  For now, I am content and toasty in my sleeping bag as the rain continues outside. I know the saying: "No rain, no pain, no Maine," but the rain has my permission to cease by morning. We'll just have to wait and see.