Date: 2015-04-14
From: US 52

To: VA 606 (Trent's Grocery)
Miles today: 18.5

Bubba came to pick us up way early this morning, he said he woke up before his alarm and decided to get moving. He delivered us to the US 52 trailhead (where we stopped yesterday) at 7:00 am. Our plan today was to slack-pack northbound to Trent's Grocery (where we stayed last night) and stay there one more night. This is our last ride with Bubba, we've enjoyed the trips with him and asked for a parting photo. He knows all the access roads to the AT trailheads in the area, and he's a good driver - that's important on these mountain roads. Almost as soon as we left his van it started to rain. This time the forecasters were right on target and it rained the rest of the day. As I look out the window, it's raining right now. And the forecast for the rest of the week has changed too, now it shows rain through Sunday, with thunderstorms on Monday. A full week of rain. The big story today was the weather. We spent a lot of time on ridge lines and about all we could see was fog, mist and clouds. So I didn't take many pics. And we only saw two other hikers. Actually, the first one was "trail running". He had a lightweight pack and said a quick hello as he ran past us. I'm not certain whether he was running the entire way, or just trying to catch up with someone. The other hiker we saw was adjusting his pack cover (a waterproof cover to keep your pack dry) when we passed him. Then he passed us while Princess was making a phone call, and we passed him a little later. The hike seemed extremely long, but I'm sure it was largely due to the dreary weather. The ridge line in the second half of the hike was very rocky, even the smoother sections had a lot of smaller sharp rocks that are hard on feet. And while I'm complaining, there was a dearth of blazes along the ridge lines, again later in the hike. But frankly, on a ridge line, there's basically only one trail, so you're not likely to get lost. I suspect it's hard to get volunteers to hike several hours with equipment up to a ridge line to repaint blazes. In better weather I'm sure it wouldn't have bothered me. We did have one event in the ridge line, one of Princess' hiking poles came apart. She bought a new pair of Leki poles in Damascus, but she's had problems with them almost from the start. The lower pole extension has a twist lock, and it doesn't stay locked. This time the pole came apart - it was on a level section and she wasn't putting any stress on it. When the extension came out, it broke out of a plastic retainer, so we couldn't just put it back together. She finished the hike with one pole, so now we're trying to figure out how to get it repaired or replaced. The only unusual trail feature was a suspension bridge across Kimberling Creek at the very end of the hike. I remember the bridge from last year, but it seems to be relatively new. The creek was running full from the day's rain. The AT crosses VA 606 about a half-mile from Trent's, so we added a road walk to the hike. When we finally got to our room, it was great to get out of the wet clothes and boots and get a shower. We had a late lunch and then a sandwich this evening and now we're packing up. Tomorrow we're sending our backpacks on to Woods Hole Hostel and hiking there from here.