Date: 2003-05-10
To: Terrapin Station Hostel
Miles today: 0.0

A hostel in a storm is a welcome sight indeed!Greetings from Terrapin Station Hostel, 60 miles south of Harper's Ferry. Yesterday my first guest star, Pippa Brashear, had to leave me to the woods and the rain. Having Pippa (who will hopefully be writing a guest entry soon) on the trail was ridiculously fun. I felt like I was cheating, hiking was so easy! So, since I last wrote in Waynesboro, a lot has happened. Going into Charlottesville with the gang was a blast. Thanks a million to Mike Barrett for letting us stay in three hotel rooms at the Cavalier which were way too nice for smelly hikers and for buying us such lovely refreshments. Thanks also to Java for having such a nice dad (and for being not too shabby himself). We also went out to a fun bar with Java's high school friends: a few cool girls, especially Meghan, a bunch of hikers, a rapper and his producer. Seriously. Many thanks to M&M Neuzil for the rides to, from, and around town which made this public programming possible.So it was a little rough to get right back on the trail on Sunday. A-Train, Squirts and Grunt jumped right into a 20 miler, but Red and I decided to take it easy that day. We met up with Flick, who had just been hiking with his boy scouts, and spent the next couple of days putting on serious mileage in serious weather (40 and rainy). After a day of 26 miles and another of 20, I hobbled into Lewis Mt. Campground where I was supposed to meet Pippa...and who should I see but Cindy and Barak Brashear, Pippa's mom and brother? Pippa and I ended up spending a cushy and lovely evening at a cabin and went out to a dinner of prime rib and cabernet at Big Meadows Lodge. The nice thing about the Shenandoahs is that you can spend a lot of money going to these lodges and waysides that are on Skyline Drive, as the trail and the drive weave around each other.Despite some heel pain, Pippa was a great hiking companion. It was also wonderful to see how much the Brashears love the Virginia mountains, and I learned some new birds and wildflowers. Breakfast at Skyland Lodge was to die for, and the shelters were full with some section hikers, notably two slightly strange women and their nipping border collie who was constantly being yelled at.I was especially glad to have Pips around on the eve of the Great Ball of Fire, namely when thru-hiker Cannoli lit himself on fire when his homemade alcohol stove blew up in his face (it was the closed system, not the normal soda-can design.) I was writing in my journal when I heard a great "pop" and turned to see Cannoli frantically patting at the flames on his shirt and beard. We (Red, Pippa and myself) got him in the creek to cool the blisters developing on his hands and face, Red cooked him dinner on a sectioner's non-exploding stove, and Pippa and I hiked him down to the Luray volunteer rescue squad who we called by cell phone. Amazingly, he only had 2nd degree burns and is now back on the trail with a lot of gauze on his face. Something we weren't sure about is if there should be another alcohol fire, is dousing it with water an okay thing to do? As far as I know, you should only avoid using water if the burning substance is grease or oil. But let me know. I put out the stove itself by putting a cook pot (aka billy can) over it.So that was a lot of excitement for us plodding hikers, and we celebrated by hiking a 23 mile day yesterday (with a nice break at a wayside for Mountain Blackberry shakes and fries and homemade fudge). Pippa and I saw the coolest storm, and while the day was long it was amazing to come in to a hostel and shower and have an inflatable mattress with linens to sleep on. Today will be a shorter 14, and on Tuesday I will meet Aunt Minna and Uncle Steven in Harper's Ferry, "the psychological halfway point of the trail!"   Into the storm!