Date: 2015-05-10
From: Pickle Branch Shelter

To: VA 624. 4 Pines Hostel
Miles today: 6.7

I was able to sleep in this morning. No rush to get out of camp. We only had a few miles before we hit the hostel and they looked fairly easy. Off I went. The long ass climb out of the shelter back to the trail. Said good morning to the guys camped at the top of the hill (Salmon and that group). And hustled on out. So the terrain wasn't too bad to start. A giant up with lots of rock scrambles. Part for the course. The terrain looked easy peasy jn the book. What a giant lie. It was a struggle. Eventually I made it up and came across dragons tooth. It's an awesome rock formation and when you climb up on it you can see down into the valley. I could see the hostel we were going to from up there. Hiesenburg, papalu and I scrambled up the rock to see the view. Chimney came up after us and scrambled up to the very top of the tooth. Very awesome but not very easy to get down...which is why I didnt go up there. But it was awesome! Lots of cool pictures. Now the decent from dragons tooth was horrible. There was no indication in either AT book or on the trail at how bad it was going to be. It was a very steep scramble down rocks ledges. There were metal rungs bolted into the rock walls that you had to climb down on. This stuff was not something you should be doing with a pack on. It was intense. And a bit scary. Eventually I make it the few miles down out of the rocks and what do I see. A giant sign saying steep dangerous climb ahead, blah blah. WTF? How do we not get warnings that we have to climb down that.Anyways, as I'm coming down a hiker coming up yells my name. I do so love that! It was Forward!! He's off trail for his daughters college graduation but he lives in the area and came to meet up with the group. He was hiking up to Doc who wasn't feeling good...dehydration. But we chatted for a bit.I finally made it down to the road crossing. Mighty mouse, chimney and hiesenburg were already there. Forward put beer and soda in the river for trail magic so I enjoyed one of those. Once everyone got down we made a decision of what to do. Forward drove all our packs to the hostel and we walked the .4 miles to it. Once there a few showered and we determined to not go to the hiker feed. We went to The Homeplace Resturant instead.This resturant was awesome! Its in a house from 1907. It's an all you can eat family style eating. The place was packed when we got there. A 2 hour waitlist, it was mothers day after all. Bht it was worth the wait. We had never ending plates of fried chicken, roast beef and country ham. We had bowls of mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, baked beans, biscuits, warm cinnamon apples and Cole slaw. There were 11 of us and we ate and ate and ate. It was so freaking good. Dessert was cherry cobbler with ice cream. Everything home made. It was the most amazing experience of my life. Ibe never eaten so much fried chicken in my life.The hostel was pretty awesome. It's donation run. The giant garage out back is the main part of the hostel. Just an open room with a few beds, couches, chairs, a pool table and some picnic tables. And a bathroom with a shower. There was tent city in the fields surrounding that. And then there was the barn. Good place to set up hammocks. He had also built a ledge along the back wall. Just wide enough for people to sleep on. Pretty awesome!! The owner was a pretty cool guy. I was having a hard time convincing my self that I should hike on. I wanted to but I didn't want to. So mighty mouse and I flipped a coin to determine what to do. Heads we stay, tails to leave. Heads it was.We slept set up our stuff in the barn. I so love sleeping in barns. I hung out down at the main hostel. The guys played a few rounds of 99. I refused because I planned on hiking 26 miles the next day. I did not want to lose 3 rounds in a row again. Then they played some corn hole. Salmon and I played the winner of the first game and we won!! Still undefeated in corn hole. Such a great night.