Date: 2016-09-19
From: Punchbowl Shelter

To: Glasgow, VA
Miles today: 10.5
Weather: light rain

It is still raining at 0700. I've a shorter day planned so I'm not in a hurry to pack. I move slowly - hoping things will dry - knowing they won't - everything is just plain damp, at best. I can literally see the moisture on my quilt.But Snakebite is out just after 0700; followed shortly by Castaway. I hope the rain will actually stop. It slows to a drizzle. I leave at 0900. This is only a 10.5 mile day to US 501. I climb out of the shelter area, UP Punchbowl Mountain, and UP to the top of Bluff Mountain (Ottie Cline Powell monument). It had stopped raining on the climb.But it was like walking in a cloud bank. I could see the rising and drifting wind currents due to the cloud (fog?). And it was a very damp breeze.Finally the trail dropped to the lee side of the mountain and I had some protection from the wind. I passed Castaway between Saltlog and Saddle Gaps and picked a spot along Big Rocky Row (aptly named) for lunch. Castaway stopped to chat and take in the view. He departed shortly saying he'd stop at the next shelter for lunch.I pass him yet again before that point. He tells me I shouldn't have problems getting a ride to Glasgow; US 501 is a heavily traveled highway. Well - I'm there at 1400 and I'm still there at 1445. It may be a heavily traveled highway, but most of the traffic is east toward Big Island, not west to Glasgow. The vehicles that are traveling west avoid me like the plague, some all the way into the other lane.At 1450 I start to hike. I'm in a valley, right? How hard can another 6.0 miles of road walk be? It was okay - for a while. Then the traffic sign read: "Steep grade, sharp curves, next 4 miles." One look at the shoulders told me to stand fast (I was standing next to a pull-off) and pray someone would stop and give me a ride. Thirty minutes later, prayers answered, a ride. I'd seen this van in the AT parking area, the family and friends from Albuquerque had been out for a day-hike. They left me at the intersection of US 501/VA 130 - a short mile stroll and flat. I pass Snakebite; he's coming out of town (took a blue blaze for supplies).Shortly I find the hiker pavilion (after a stop at the convenience store for 2 quarts of Gatorade). Built by the BSA troop in 2010, it appears to have a little of everything. Electricity, electric lamps and clock, a microwave (yes, really, a functioning unit), hot (yes, hot) showers, and the necessary port-a-potty. And it has "Nubz," who just can't stop telling me about his trials and tribulations. (I don't think the "trials" were concerned only with the trail however.) Eventually he spies the number and menu for a lounge and grille. He loves his phone. He'd been talking to someone for the better part of the previous hour. He now calls the lounge and someone has agreed to come pick him up. Another hiker arrives - by car. He is trying to "connect the dots." He'd started a thru hike and missed two areas; a 10-mile section from Thunder Hill Shelter due to bear activity and a section near Hot Springs due to fires. He set up, had dinner, and was off to sleep.My dinner came from the Dollar General. Smoked sausages in hot dog buns with Colby cheese cooked - you guessed it - in a microwave.And, all else being accomplished, off to sleep.