Date: 2005-05-24
From: Wilson Creek Shelter

To: Bryant Ridge Shelter
Miles today: 20.6
Weather: overcast clouds

Every morning now, it gets light outside significantly earlier. This morning, as I lay there, I could tell the sun was starting to brighten up the sky by 5:15.I layed there for a while, feeling like it was just too damned early to start up, but, regardless, OC1 and I were still packed up and ready to walk by 6:30. Easy Goer decided to hang around a little longer and eat his bagel and cream cheese. Whenever there's an uphill in the morning, he prefers to stay behind and catch up later. He likes to run up the hills and get his heart rate up at least once a day. It was a fairly easy day today, with not too many rocks in comparison to what is usually seen in Virginia. There were alot of bumps, pointless ups and downs, also known as PUDS, where you walk along, going up 200 feet, just enough to take your breath away, and then right back down again, then back up again.During this whole walk today, you could tell that the area had once been logged or cleared away. The trees were either small or non-existant. There were whole sections where there were no trees. We were walking through rhododendron and thicket. The rhododendron, by the way, are in full bloom - it's magnificient. It's like walking through a forest of lavender and purple flowers.We by-passed a number of shelters this morning. Basically, we hauled ass. We had a mission of food, of course. If we got to the Va. 614, we could walk 1 mile off the Trail to get to A Wonderful Life Campground. They advertise hot food, ice cream, cabins and tent space if you wanted it. That was 17 miles from where we started this morning. We managed to do that 17 miles by 1 pm. We made damned good time and mileage. As we were walking in to the campground, it started drizzling and we started to get wet. We sat there and ordered all kinds of food. Cheese burgers, BBQ beef sandwiches, chili dogs and all kinds of stuff. We hung around there for about 2 hours. It started raining harder and harder. I ran over to the lady that was running the place to ask about the cabins. She said it was $45 for the cabin but, she would let us have it for $35. I bought that back to OC1 and Easy Goer, hoping they would agree to that because, Ive had plenty of experience walking in the rain and I'm against doing it on purpose. They elected not to stay, so, at around 3 o'clock we walked out into the rain and walked the mile back to the Trail and then the 3 or so miles up to Bryant Ridge Shelter. In the process we got completely, absolutely drenched.OC1 and Easy Goer went up ahead of me. I walk uphill much slower than they do.I'm from Florida and I don't like walking uphill; which doesn't really make much sense because I'm walking the Appalachian Trail, but I do take them easy. At about 5 o'clock, I got into the Bryant Ridge Shelter. It's one of the best shelters in Virginia, in my opinion. It has a big wrap around porch with benches and a picnic table outside. It's a 2 level sleeping arrangement. The creek is right next to the shelter. I elected to sleep out on the porch to give everyone a break from my snoring. I realized with a shock, as I walked into this shelter that this was the last shelter in 2003 that I was at in Virginia before I got pissed of with the rain and decided to go home. In 2003 when I walked in here, it had rained for the 26 days before. I woke up the next morning and walked back into the rain and I got pissed off and said, "I'm quitting the AT, I'm going home". I called a friend in Richmond, Virginia who picked me up and took me to the train station sent me on a train back to Florida. Of course, I regretted it as soon as I got on the train. I was back on the Trail 7 days later. Seeing that shelter was a little bit of a shock today. I had some pretty strong and powerful feelings about it. I actually walked into the shelter, after 20.6 miles in the pouring rain, and asked OC1 and Easy Goer if they would like to go on to the next shelter 5 miles away. It kind of threw them for a loop and they said NO! It was gut instinct, thinking I wanted to get the hell out of there. Besides the 3 of us at the shelter, there was a section hiker there by the name of Paul, and a through hiker there by the name Quiet Paul. He certainly was very quiet. So, we got in, strung up a clothes line, and I tried to wring out my clothes as best I could. Basically, everything I had that wasn't in a waterproof bag was soaked. We cooked and tried to get into bed. I wrote up some more of the postcards I have been carrying since Atkins, Virginia. I never seem to have enough time to write them. I finally had to put on my wrung-out wet pants and got into my sleeping bag. Hopfully they will dry out overnight. We are up to 66.2 miles in Extra Trail-Estrial Miles now.