Date: 2004-06-18
From: Big Meadows Campground

To: past Elkwallow Wayside
Miles today: 26.2

It was a nice sunny morning at Big Meadows Campground on the Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park. We packed our packs, stuffed them in the steel bear box at our site and proceeded to hitch to the store but wound up walking the whole way. Bummer. The store had a grill and dining area. The plan was to have breakfast here and pick up enough supplies to get us to Harpers Ferry, a mere four days away now at this rate. That was really hard to comprehend. We were almost out of Virginia and approaching halfway. Unreal.The store had some reasonable supplies but the folks at the checkout were unbelievably slow. This however was nothing compared to the folks working in the dining room. My order was placed at the walk-up counter for waffles or pancakes. After 3 parties who ordered after me got their food I asked about my order. They got very flustered and had no idea what had happened. It was as if I had never ordered but I had the receipt. Eventually my food arrived but something was missing. My disappointment in this establishment was so extreme, I didn't even as for it to be fixed. They were keeping me form the trail. The serving size was tiny too.Now it was time for the hitch back to the campground. We were prepared to walk the whole thing, only a mile, but some older folks in a van stopped and gave us a ride. That was great. We stuffed the food in our packs and headed out. My boots were falling apart so I stopped to try to call the manufacturer, Merrill, to see if they might replace them. Buick, of course, hiked on. It was a challenge finding the number especially using a calling card. It's 22 digits plus the number you're calling. That brings the total to 32 digits. Arrrg. The folks at Merrill said that my model of their boot was never intended for this kind of heavy use. I couldn't argue with that. EMS, where the boots were purchase said they would replace them but the nearest store was nowhere near by. It was 11am by now and the hiking itch was really getting to me. This was way too late to be starting, especially on another long day. I just had to bolt out of there. Forget the boots.It was a nice enough day. My spirits began to climb with each step along the trail. There was a nice view from Monkey Head just a half mile from the campground. It was tough convincing myself to stop long enough to take a picture. After all it was late and there were many miles to hike. There is that feeling that it is to soon to take any kind of a break. A break hasn't been earned yet. that's how my head works anyway. Fortunately, with the camera conveniently on my hip belt, it only takes about 15 seconds to take a picture. Some times I wouldn't even stop, just snap while walking.Most of the day the trail stayed in the trees as is typical here in the Shenandoah. In the afternoon it passed through Pinnacles Picnic Area. This seemed like a nice place to stop for some lunch with its water fountains and picnic tables shaded by roofs. Much to my surprise, about an hour from the picnic area there was a wonderful vista from Mary's Rock. Finally, what a nice reward this was.The waysides are generally open from April through October but they only go on extended hours during the summer. Somewhere along the line at a campstore there had been a sign indicating which waysides were going on extended hours and when. Elkwallow Wayside was the northern most and it was only listed to be 0.1 miles off the trail. It was 26.2 trail miles from Big Meadow Campground. At full speed all day there was a chance of making it by 7pm. That would be better than three miles an hour average for the entire day with my late start of 11am. Shenandoah Waysides:Let's talk about waysides. Here in the Shenandoah National Park the term Wayside refers to a little gift shop with a grill or restaurant. Some thru-hikers claim that there is no need to carry food here, just eat at the waysides and campgrounds. That might work for some but for me they always seemed to pop up at the wrong time or they were too far off the trail. That really didn't bother me. What did bother me was their trade mark blackberry ice cream. You may wonder what's wrong with that. Well, what's wrong is that it was not getting into my belly. I really wanted to have some of this delicacy but the timing just wasn't working out. Today was my last chance. It was haul mode all day. That may sound painful but it wasn't. It was fun. Finally there it was. The side trail wasn't even a tenth of a mile. There was something strangely quiet about the parking lot though. In fact it was empty. There weren't even employee cars there. The only life was hiker sitting on a bench at the far end of the building. It turned out to be a dejected Buick. He was anticipating a meal and blackberry ice cream too. We had both thought this would be the first day of extended hour here but it seemed someone had other ideas. Well this was disappointing but what could we do.We got sodas at a vending machine to quench our taste for civilization and parked ourselves at a picnic table to cook dinner. As it turned out Buick had a pretty miserable day. He had gotten tired of missing all the views while walking in the woods. At Pinnacles Picnic Area he took to the Skyline drive so he could get the views at the overlooks. What he hadn't counted on was the literal pain of walking on pavement, not to mention the heat. His feet were killing him and he was just plain beat. It didn't help when I told him about the beautiful view from Mary's Rock. Of course that was pretty much the only view all day.A little food and we both felt better. It's not like this stuff really got us down. You just have to laugh. Besides, there was a pair of bright yellow Crocks sitting on top of a post at the edge of a grass island in the parking lot. Buick had been looking for some Crocks without much luck. We figured no thru-hiker would be hiking back for camp shoes. Score! Buick adopted them. He borrowed a Sharpee from me and put his name on them. A raccoon kept trying to get the best of a dumpster. A bunch of bicyclist stopped in for a little rest. We talked a bit. Later a couple of motorcycles pulled through and got sodas. Another hiker stopped in too but he didn't stay long. We weren't in any hurry to move on though maybe we should have been. It was late dusk by the time we got back on the trail. We were just looking for someplace flat to pitch our tents. We didn't want to go far because we were determined to come back in the morning for breakfast. Darkness fell fast. There really wasn't any flat land though. We stumbled around in the dark off the trail for a while and then moved on a few times. Finally we gave up and pitched our tents in the trail. The trail was a narrow tread way about a foot wide with about two or three feet of grass on either side. Honestly there was no way our tents were going to actually damage the flora here. We agreed to get up early so no one would have to dance around our tents. Bear Bagging:Before sleep there were three more games to play. "Find The Tree" and "Find A Rock" and "Toss The Rock Over The Branch". That's right. This was prime bear territory. We had to hang our food. Each of these three games was actually quite a challenge under the incredible starry night sky in a fairly dense forest. Rocks were scarce around here and hard to find in the dark. The trees were close to each other and it was hard to see up to the branches. Then there was to big game of tossing the rock tied to the string over the branch. The hazards are many and include: * String tangling in underbrush as rock hurtles skyward. * Rock hitting hiker on the way back down. * Missing the branch. * Going over the wrong branch. * Tangling in branches overhead. * Wrapping around the branch. * Rock escapes string and gets lost. * Branch breaks. Many of these hazards had to be overcome. Eventually we prevailed. One of our food sacks was tied to and end of the string and hauled up the the branch. Then the other was tied and tossed up to counter balance the first. This all probably took a good hour before. Bear boxes and cable systems are nice. It was now time to climb into our tents.