Date: 2016-04-30
From: War Spur Shelter

To: Niday Shelter
Miles today: 18.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Today it rained. Tomorrow it will rain again. That's just the way it goes. Virginia has challenged me greater than any part of the trail, and to a degree, more so than anything else in my life. Maybe it's just the way things have worked out. But I sit smack dab in the middle of a perfect storm of SNAFU's and sour circumstance. To add to my slew of mental obstacles, I now face technical problems. First, my tent failed and water started to seep in during a thunderstorm. I woke up soaking wet as rain water slid down the inside of my hammock and pooled up at my back. I've contacted the company, and it looks as though they are going to send me a rainfly. Unfortunately, 5 days of nonstop rain stands between me and the location they have sent the tarp to. For now, I try to shelter hop and hope that they aren't full when I get there. Stop early to guarantee a space in a closer shelter? Or, make the miles and hope that there's room in the shelter up ahead?At the start of the Pearisburg-Daleville stretch, the gasket to my water filter was swept downstream. It has beed rendered utterly useless until I can get to a hardware store and buy a couple of them. Luckily, I packed emergency water purification tablets. They take 30 minutes to neutralize and taste like pool water coming out of a hot plastic cup. To cut down on weight and bulk, I sent my sleeping bag home when I was in Pearisburg. I dropped 4.5 pounds out of my pack, the sleeping bag being the bulk of this. It was overkill for what I need in this season, and I woke up sweaty every night. Now of course with the rainy weather, it has been chilly. Even wearing all of my layers, and wrapping in my insulated sleeping bag liner, I still wake up cold every night. A full resupply package sent from my mother back home has managed to elude me since Damascus. I arranged in Damascus to have it sent up to Pearisburg. When I got to Pearisburg, no package. It was still in Damascus. Now I've had to bounce that to Daleville. I made a desparation attempt at a disgustingly cheap resupply to get me the 80 miles or so between towns. 3 pounds of plain oatmeal, 2 six pack bricks of beef flavored ramen noodles, 2 bags of instant garlic mashed potatoes and 1 jar of peanut butter...$11, 80 miles. Start walking. As I sat at a $6 Chinese food buffet in Pearisburg, I vented to a friend about how every aspect of this journey was seemingly falling apart."Nah" he said, "This is the part where it gets good."Another good friend gave me some of the best advice I've received yet, "Little things gain enormous importance when you're alone."This surely put me in my place. Somehow, I let this trip make me feel as if I had to be out here. After all of the sacrifices I made, there was no way I could go home without success. Eventually, this snowballed into a hatred for every step. A feeling of being trapped in the woods came upon me. Rather than being liberated in the wilderness and living out my dream adventure, I was bitter enough to feel trapped. I found comfort in the rain as I walked in silence through fields and forests, up and over mountains and along rocky ridge lines.All of this resentment that I harbored towards the trail. What happened? I loved this in the planning and at the start. I worked so hard to make this a possibility, and others helped a great deal as well. How could I be so selfish and actually not want to be out here? What had I sacrificed and what has been taken?These thoughts raced through my head as I trudged through the rain. The sky was all the same pale gray color and a light drizzle soaked everything in my possession. My feet were covered in sores from my aging shoes and a perpetual soggy state. They ached from 8 weeks of abuse. Every step pain, resentment, pain resentment. I worked my way into a cycle of anger. As I came down from Kelly Knob, I ran into a group of day hikers from Virginia Tech who took my photo and told me how inspired they were by through hikers. I laughed to them and told them I was honored, but still very much working on inspiring myself. 12 miles into the day, the rain began to come down in sheets. I stopped at the top of my 1100' ascent to change into my rain gear. I managed to put on an old album that made me feel content with this environment. Then my phone died. Stripped of luxuries like music, and necessities like food, water and shelter, I was defeated. I crawled under a large rock and sat shivering in the cold, water running all over me. I ate uncooked ramen and drank my pool water as I looked out into the soaked hollow before me; twisted vines the size of my arms, ancient moss covered piles of rocks from farms years ago and apple trees aged just as well. Lacking my security blanket, my music, I was as vulnerable as I could be for that breaking moment. I crawled out from under this rock, literally and quite metaphorically I might add, and continued on listening only to the rain. I soon stood before the Eastern Continental Divide. Here, water on the west side of the mountain flows to the Gulf of Mexico, water on the east side flows to the Atlantic. This ridge line was ancient. The Appalachian range is among the oldest mountains on earth. Here, at this exact point I could feel that age. Billions of years had passed right before the very rock formations I walked over. I imagined these rocks slamming into one another over an eternity as they grew taller in formation and then receded by erosion. I picked every step with extreme precision. These eroded boulders were slick from the day's rain, and to fall, well that was not a desirable option. To slide down these rocks would mean a 60' almost straight down slide. As I looked forward for more white blazes on the rocks, I could see the clouds rolling up and over my path ahead. The wind whistled in my ears while water continued to slap against me. Each step was labored and slow. To my left, an abyss of nothingness, to my right the same. I was not walking, just simply being allowed to exist on this other worldly and ancient plane. I had managed to catch a glimpse into some of the earliest portions of the planet's history. It was as if I was the first human on earth. Being deprived of what little commodities I had, humbled me like nothing else has ever humbled me. I had been reduced to rubble by the trail, and because of that sacrifice, I was allowed to see it in its elemental state. As I stepped off that ridge line, the change in environment was instantaneous. Lush green forest stood between me and the shelter below. The storm had passed and I was again at peace on the Appalachian Trail.