Date: 2015-11-28
From: VA 614, Jennings Creek

To: Salt Pond Road, USFS 191
Miles today: 20.4
Weather: overcast clouds

The long range weather predictions were still calling for several days of rain and plummeting temperatures over the next 2 weeks. I decided the wisest choice was to head back to Florida with my husband on 11/29/15.We were concerned that access to the Blue Ridge Parkway and the forest roads could be closed/blocked due to snow and/or gates when I return to the AT in February.   So we decided to finish the portion of the AT where it crossed or came near the Blue Ridge Parkway before heading back to Florida, almost 27 miles. To save time, we would camp near the trail rather than head into town for the night.I started the long steady climb out of the gap at Jennings Creek at first light. I knew it was going to be a VERY long day. Luckily it was another beautiful clear day, and the trail was again relatively easy.I noticed a man in a kilt with a full pack hiking south ahead of me. "Stir Fry" was hiking very slowly and seemed to be having a problem. As I passed him I said hello and slowed down to talk with him. He told me that he previously hoped to thru hike the AT, but he got bored in VA and got off. Now he is section hiking the AT when he can.I laughed when he said he got bored. I have never been bored on the AT. I told him I have been cold, tired, wet, or hungry plenty of times - sometimes all at once, but never bored. I always manage to find something interesting in the woods to keep myself entertained. Maybe it is because of all the Florida Master Naturalist classes I have taken. As I have hiked along I have taken time to examine things like flowers, trees, ferns, fungus, salamanders, tracks, squirrels, and scat. I told him how I recently spent an entire day in the Shenandoah NP examining and photographing all the big piles of bear scat I found next to the trail. I thought it was interesting to see what the bears were eatting and how their digestive systems handled what they ate. Stir Fry just looked at me like I was crazy.I was hoping I could somehow help him and told him I am a Wilderness First Responder. Stir Fry was having a problem with his foot and, unfortunately, there was nothing that would help except getting him off the trail. He needed to get to his car in Daleville, roughly 25 painful AT miles away.I knew Rod was waiting for me at the next road crossing, just a little ways ahead. I wished Stir Fry luck and headed up the trail. I met Rod at the Mills Gap overlook/BRP 91.8 and told him about the man with the foot problem. I remembered all the kind people who have helped me along the AT, and asked Rod if he would consider giving the man a lift to his car.I was enjoying a brief break and snack when Stir Fry made it to the road crossing. Rod immediately recognized Stir Fry as a hiker he met yesterday at a road crossing while he was waiting for me. He also remembered that the man was carrying a gun. Now I was not so sure I wanted Rod to give him a ride.We invited Stir Fry to join us for a break in order to find out more about him and his gun. For a while we talked about gear and food - typical hiker conversation. Eventually we learned that he was a retired police officer, and he carried the gun because he was apprehensive about bears, not people. I was amazed. Fear is obviously a matter of perspective. What surprised me the most was that cops see the worst people that society has to offer. Cops know all the terrible things people are capable of doing to one another.   Yet Stir Fry feared people less than bears. No wonder he did not share my facination with bear scat.Rod and I both felt comfortable with Stir Fry's explanation for his carrying a gun, and Rod offered him a ride to his car, which by road was not very far. I continued hiking. I still had a very long way to go today.To save time I skipped stopping at the shelters and instead only took brief breaks when Rod met me at the road crossings along the Blue Ridge Parkway. Although I was sure everything was fine, I was relieved when Rod met me at a road crossing after he took Stir Fry to his car in Daleville. Stir Fry is the only hiker I have met who made it known he was carrying a gun. Despite his explanation, a gun on the AT made me very uncomfortable. Late in the day, as I entered the gap at Curry Creek, I spooked a couple of deer. The deer ran away from the creek and up the mountain ahead of me   A short time latter I heard gunfire. I so hoped that my presence did not drive the deer I saw earlier toward the hunters.As I made the long climb out of the gap it got dark and fog rolled in. I was hoping Rod stayed at the car and did not hike in to meet me. (If both of us were in the woods separately, and both of us got injured, there would be no one left to realize there is a problem and to call for help.) p>As I was picking my way up the trail in the dark I saw a headlamp way up ahead. Rod was getting worried, but he did not venture very far down the trail. Earlier, before it got dark, when Rod arrived at the road crossing he found a blood trail leading from the road down the AT. He followed the blood trail to a neatly placed pile of guts from a field dressed deer a hunter had left right in the middle of the trail for a hiker like me to find. Rod used sticks to move the guts off the trail. (Wouldn't that have been something for me to come across in the dark!)Rod picked up dinner at Bojangles before meeting me at the road crossing. (He bought a 12 piece family meal for just the 2 of us because he "wanted to make sure I had enough to eat." I guess my hiker appetite was pretty obvious.)We had a nice hiker picnic in the dark on Maggie's hood. At the time we could see stars through the thin clouds and light fog. We also heard owls off in the distance. Because rain was expected overnight, and we did not want to deal with a soaking wet tent in the morning, we slept in the car. The AT is calling. Tomorrow will be my last day on the trail for a while. Winter is nipping at my heals.