Date: 2008-04-20
From: Manassas Gap Shelter

To: Rod Hollow Shelter
Miles today: 12.8
Weather: moderate rain

Day two of my Six day section hike started the same way the first day ended. Wet! It was still raining when I woke up. I am glad to have the new tarp as it provided plenty of space for me to cook under while still in my hammock. I did realize one thing as I was cooking that there were a few drips here and there. It dawned on me that this tarp is made of two pieces of Sil-Nylon and it has a seam. Yep you guessed it I had not seam sealed the damn thing so from time to time a drop would form. I will have to take care of this when I get home.It looked like it may let up but it didn¢t and so I started out of camp in my rain gear and trudged northward. The trail had seen a lot of rain and parts of it were like small streams. After about a half hour or so of sweating in my rain gear it looked to be letting up so I stopped and took it off. Most of you can guess what happened next. A cloud burst and in a few moments I was completely soaked. It this point there was no point in putting my gear back on so I just hiked wet.It was so dark from the cloud cover that at almost 11:00 in the am I was hearing and owl and then shortly after that a second one. Soon the tow of them were making calls back and forth. I saw the one fly up into a tree not too far back off the trail. The other one must have been in that same tree and all hell broke loose now I am not sure if I was witnessing owl¢s fighting or lovemaking but it was noisy.Lunch today was at the small shelter called Dick¢s Dome. I tried to stay warm by changing into my fleece top while at the shelter and hanging my other stuff up after wringing it out. I am not sure who I was fooling that it would dry at all during lunch. The rain was really pouring down a few times. While I was at the shelter I did notice a tick on me but it was easy enough to get it off with a bit of Orange Oil. In the afternoon I walked though Skyland Meadow park. I think that tis would be a cool place to come back to and see what views there were from this area. Today it was all that I could do to follow the trail through here. It is pretty open and so at times you cant see the next blaze with all the fog and low clouds that were present today. I mostly just looked down and followed the shorter grass that was mowed out as a path. I had to stop before I went down to Ashby Gap to try to fix a hot spot on the ball of my left foot. This was tough to do in the rain and get anything to really stick.The afternoon from Ashby gap it was to be 3.6 miles to the Rod Hollow shelter. Well this seemed like one of the longest 3.6 miles I have walked in a while. I had seen in some of the shelter logs that Morel mushrooms were present in this area. I was looking for them and found one. I gave t to Doggiebag and he put it in his dinner that night. I was just glad to get to the shelter and find it dry and had plenty of space to spread out my stuff. I was soaked to the bone by the time I got into what little dry stuff I had and get set for the night ahead. Daily Stats Ascended 2240 feet Descended 3050 feet 7:41 hrsDaily Mileage 12.8 Grand Total 330.9