Date: 2003-05-14
From: Wise Shelter

To: By a Spring near Buzzard Rock
Miles today: 12.0

It was cold last night and I went up to the shelter early this morning to find 'Two Speeds' and 'Chafe Master' had had a miserable night. In fact, "Chafe" was already on the Trail - he left at first light just to warm up. 'Dimple Rock' and 'Wrong Way' were also packed and ready to go early, having decided thay would do a heavy 17 mile day to Lost Mountain Shelter and therefore try to reach Damascus tomorrow night. The landscape for much of today has been very different from anything we have eccountered up to now. These are the Grayson Highlands and very familiar to a Scottish hillwalker. A base of solid rock only partly covered by a layer of short grass so there are rocky outcrops everywhere. A few bushes and one or two stunted trees trying to survive in the exposed conditions. Views aplenty of course, the day was bright and warmer than yesterday, so it was very enjoyable walking.Wild ponies are here, though they seem anything but wild, and are happy to accept anything the hikers offer them as they pass.Climbing up to our highest point on Mt Rodgers, we scrambled over, round, and, at one point, even under the rock formations and giant slabs of rock on our path. Getting myself through was straightforward enough, getting my pack through was often more difficult. We had negotiated the coloufully named 'Fat Man Squeeze Tunnel'. I passed familiar faces all morning travelling the other way. 'Moo' and '42', later Ben, Tyler and 'Pipes', and then 'Hopeful'. 'Hopeful' and I stopped for a break and reminisced with a few bars from the 'Wreck of the Old '97' (It's a mighty fine road from Lynchburg to Danville'). For me it brought back the skiffle era (an old Lonnie Donegan hit), for him it's a traditional bluegrass number.We all regrouped at Thomas Knob Shelter for lunch where we admired the privy and its solar-powered composting system. Afterwards, each leaving at different times as usual, we threaded our way through the forest of the Lewis Fork Wilderness. On the descent of Balsam Mt. in this area we passed through large areas covered in bluetts. Emerging on to a cow pasture just before the road (VA.600) at Elk Garden, the hillside just shone with these small, sky blue spring flowers.With all my dawdling along the way, I was the last to reach the road - to a resounding cheer from all the others, plus 'Blaze' and 'Face' who were travelling north, and a very likeable young woman called 'Blink Blink' who was waiting here to be met by her parents for a day of R&R.Not long afterwards on the quite gentle ascent of Whitetop Mt. who should I meet heading the other way but 'Sheepstuff'. In fact she was parked on the narrow forest pathway, where she had decided it was time to brew a cup of her green tea. I asked her where she was planning to stay the night and received a typical 'Sheepstuff' answer, "Well, I've no idea. When I'm about an hour from stopping, I pray that God will find me a place to put up my tent. And one always comes along." She isn't going back for Trail Days, and expects to have the AT all to herself for a few days.As 'Thistle' and 'Two Speeds' swept past me, it became apparent that everyone was now keen to get to Lost Mountain Shelter tonight and Damascus tomorrow. Damascus fever again.I have opted out of that plan, and have put up my tent at a quite beautiful spot beside a spring with a grand view of the valley floor spread out below me and beyond that to the next ridge of hills to the southwest. It's the first night I am camping entirely alone, which feels a bit strange, but I know the others will keep a protective eye on 'Thistle' up ahead. I should see her again in Damascus probably about lunch-time on Friday. I sit with a cup of tea looking over the valley below, the evening is mild, and the setting sun on my right creates patterns of light and shade on the hills opposite. It's good to be alive.