Date: 2003-06-06
From: Pinnacles Picnic Campground

To: Rock Springs Hut
Miles today: 19.7
Weather: scattered clouds

So, I did manage to get to Pinnacles Campground last night. It was about a 15 acre long spread with a covered pavilion in the center with 10 picnic tables under it and then around the whole outskirts there were picnic tables too. I was very tempted to just stick my sleeping pad and sleeping bag right on top of one of those picnic tables under the covered pavilion and sleep there. But, people kept driving through even as it was getting dark. So, I changed my mind and just crawled up into the woods there just behind one of the picnic tables so no one could see me and set up the hammock. As I was hanging my food bag last night, also, here comes yet another bear. The third bear of the day that I saw. So, I had to pick up my pots and pans and beat them together and chase them away. Then I changed the location of my food bag to make it even further away from my hammock. This morning I did not want to get up again. I feel those mood swings going on again here and it makes me angry when it happens. My eyes were open probably at 5:30 this morning. I could¢ve gotten up and gotten going. It was getting pretty light already. I didn¢t really sleep that well last night. It was windy and pretty chilly and something directly over my head on the hammock kept flapping like crazy. So I pretty well woke up off and on all night long. I packed up all my stuff and walked out to one of the picnic tables and laid it out there. Sat down and had some cold cereal and a hot cocoa and a Reese Peanut Butter Cup and kind of moped around a little bit. I put all my socks and shoes and everything out to dry for a bit. I was pretty concerned about my feet. My toe was hurting by the end of the day yesterday. So, I wanted to make sure I was wearing dry boots and dry socks. I got out the moleskin and covered the blisters that were starting to form and then started to walk about 8:30 after using the bathroom at the picnic area. Then I hiked the 5 miles down to Fulton ? Gap and the Panorama Wayside which was a real disappointment. The restaurant was closed. The store didn¢t even have a microwave. The best I could do was get a cup of coffee and a carrot cake and a coke. I took my boots off again and changed again into drier socks and bandaged up some more to make sure my feet were ok. The walk down to Fulton Gap, especially the last 2 1/2 miles, were all completely downhill for 2 12 miles straight. Very, very challenging. Very rocky. Sharp stones sticking up and they weren¢t moving. They were definitely embedded in the trail to the point where you could not avoid walking on them. That¢s how many there were. One thing I started noticing was that the northern section of the Shenandoah National Park AT is actually pretty challenging in some places. I noticed that last night too that the 8 miles or so before getting into Big Meadows Wayside that was a walk , for a good part of the ways, along the ridge. Then down to the left, off right up the ridge, you were walking on a rock ridge. 2000 feet below was the Shenandoah Valley. Very picturesque. I took a bunch of photos. Most of them didn¢t come out I¢m sure. But, that was quite a challenging walk also. Now the walk out of Fulton Gap this morning, after walking out of there has been very, very easy. Flat trail for the most part. Hardly any rocks. Not too many inclines. Ran into a couple more deer of course. The only thing that¢s freaking me out about this place is that the fallen logs..the cut logs are very unusual shapes. I keep thinking that there¢s a bear on the trail or a dead deer or even an old car seat or something and I come up to them and it¢s just an old log. A lot of this section is overgrown and a lot the overgrowth is poison ivy. I actually ended up setting my canopy and my hammock over poison ivy last night. I really couldn¢t help it. It was everywhere. So, I had to tiptoe through it. I also met a couple other people since walking out of Fulton Gap. One young couple hiking north, they were just doing the short distance to Front Royal which is ¢¦.30 odd miles they were gonna do. A couple of day hikers going south and then another hiker going south who started at Harper¢s Ferry and is going to Damascus. The big surprise is¢¦I ran into another couple going southbound that I had met almost 2 months ago previously at Mountain Mommas in TN. Eddy and I had actually given them a ride to the trail from Mountain Mommas. Apparently, they had flown back to Boston for a wedding and then decided to flip flop and go southbound from Harper¢s Ferry where they had left off the trail. Ten minutes after that I also ran into another couple who were standing still on the trail and I tried to figure out why. I came up to them and there was a rattlesnake on the trail that they were waiting to cross. So, I poked him with my stick hoping to move him on. Instead, he turned around and got into the attack position. So, we just kind of walked around him. Also, while I was at Panorama Wayside I used the payphone down there real quick to call Mark and Jan¢¦actually to call my answering machine¢¦to see what they had to say. I left them a message on their answering machine that Saturday, about 5 o¢clock I will be at the Front Royal post office waiting for them. They¢re probably gonna pick me up and take me back to their place and then we¢re gonna do some white water rafting on Sunday. They did leave the option open that they may be coming in tomorrow night and decide to hike for Sunday instead. But, I told them either way is fine. Anyway, I have 2 12 miles to go to get to Elk ? Wayside which does have a restaurant. I want to sit down and have a good meal and then try and make as many miles as possible after that. I want to try and make it an easy day to get to Front Royal tomorrow. A lot has happened in the last 24 hours and this is the first time I¢ve had a chance to go back and record. I did get into Alcoa ? Wayside about 2:30 ¢ 3:00 in the afternoon. I immediately saw a bunch of hikers sitting there and I could tell right away they weren¢t thru hikers. There¢s a whole bunch of day hikers or whatever they were sitting on the side there drinking a lot of beer. So, I went into the store and into the so called snack bar. The food was very disappointing. I went ahead and ordered one fish sandwich and then later another fish sandwich and a chocolate milkshake and I went out to the picnic tables in the front. It was nice and sunny. So, I took off my shoes and laid out my socks to dry out and I proceeded to eat first one sandwich and then another sandwich and I bought some beer which I filled my bag with and drank one of them. I blew probably a total of and hour and a half there and then got on moving about 4:30 figuring, no big deal, I can make the shelter by 5:30 or 6:30 at the most. Instead, I had all kinds of problems with my feet. Especially the little toe on my left foot was really giving me a problem and the habitual problem I¢ve been having with the calluses on the outside of my heel. So, I had to stop a number of times to see what I could do to try and bandage it up. I tried to add extra padding and nothing worked. I finally just took off the outer pair of socks. The heavy socks seemed to help out a lot. I hike the rest of the way into Rock Springs Hut. When I got there..there was only one guy, who turned out to be the Ridgerunner from the entire Shenandoah National Park run. His name was Killer. I found out later they were calling him Fly Killer, I¢m not sure why, but I don¢t think he really likes it. He¢s a young guy. Probably just barely out of college who had applied to work for the ATC and they had stuck him down here. He lived in New Hampshire and this is one of the places he had applied for and got the job that he wanted. He¢d been on the job for 2 12 weeks. This is like at 6:30 or quarter to 7 at night and I walked in there and thought ¢Oh, gosh..this is great. I have the shelter basically to myself and the Ridgerunner. But people starting drifting in after that. First there was one couple, who were basically hiking for the weekend. They decided to go and tent, which I was really relieved about. The reason I was even in the shelter tonight was¢¦the skies were absolutely blue clear..but the weather forecast was for rain to start at midnight. Which it actually did. Right on schedule. But, I wanted to get up dry. I had a hard, fast run to do the next morning to meet Jan and Mark up at 422. That¢s a 14 mile run and I wanted to get there as early as possible. So, therefore I decided to stay in the shelter despite that I don¢t sleep very well in them and dislike the fact that everyone complains about my snoring. They weren¢t the only people who drifted in. Shortly after that two more guys drifted in and these were two of the section hikers that had been drinking a lot of beer back at Alcoa ? Hollow. They turned out to be pretty cool guys and they were gonna stay at the shelter. They were waiting for 2 other guys who were following behind them who they said were so absolutely stone drunk that they may never make it and they never did make it¢¦never showed up. No one knows what happened to them. Then came one more guy. An older man, carrying all kinds of appliances to do gardening work. He was going to be doing trail work the following day but he decided to hike up that evening knowing it was going to be raining and he didn¢t want to work all day and set up a tent while he was wet. So, he decided to hike in the night before and set up a nice dry tent and then go out and work and come back to a nice dry tent. Then the last guy to came in right at dark. Everyone had pretty much settled in and we were all sitting around talking. He was a thru hiker whose trail name was Bear Bait. Before he even said hello or anything he walked in and said ¢Who else here is a thru hiker?¢ and I was the only one there¢¦so I said ¢I am¢. He said ¢Who are you?¢ and I said ¢S.W.I.F.T.¢ and he said ¢Oh, yeah I know you. Shit what¢d I forget today¢. So anyway, to make a story short..for Friday the 6th of June it was 19.7 miles. It got close to dark and I made some hot chocolate, distributed earplugs to whoever wanted them. The Ridgerunner was one of the people. Killer ?, was one of the people who wanted a pair and he told me the next morning that he was very glad he took them because it sounded like I was dying during the course of the night and he had to put them in. That¢s the end of the story for Friday, June 6th. There were a lot of deer going into the shelter, I can tell you that. I¢m sick and tired of the deer. One of the scared the me. I looked up from the trail and I¢m looking face to face with this deer who was not about to move. I think I got more scared than the deer did because I just wasn¢t expecting it. He¢d been sitting there staring at me the whole time while I was walking up to him. 19.7 miles from Pinnacles Picnic Ground ..just south of it¢¦to Rock Springs Hut.