Date: 2017-09-25
From: Bailey Gap shelter

To: Ricefield shelter
Miles today: 16.5
Weather: few clouds

Towns tend to become the intermediate goals on this five-month hike to Springer mountain. Well, not towns so much as what towns signify: town food, hot showers, clean clothes, resupply etc.On this section, we'd been gearing up to visit Perisburg, with the idea that we'd do two 18-mile days and then we'd be five miles from town -- close enough to be there in time for breakfast. I was even contemplating going ahead of the others to have a town dinner and a night at one of Perisburg's hiker hostels.But then we reached Ricefield Shelter, located about eight miles from town on a cleared ridgetop with commanding views over the rolling valleys of West Virginia, and it was Game Over. This kind of spontaneity is less common than it should be in the thru-hiking world, where too many people have a blinkered obsession with miles and schedules rather than what appears in front of them. One of the many reasons why I fit into Team KRT is we instantly voted to stay right here, even though it put us in the middle of a long dry stretch for which we hadn't prepared by camelling water for the night.A shorter day too was a counterbalance against another night of less-than-ideal sleep. In this case, the culprits were one of the section hikers in the shelter rather than the sloping campsite. Unusually, Sweetblood and Sriracha had chosen to have the convenience of sleeping in Bailey Gap shelter rather than camping outside, but they paid a price when one of the section hikers snored like a bulldozer. All night.We'd realised the previous night that the section hikers were a little odd. One was a nobo who was carrying a full-size hatchet, he said weighing "only" 1.5lbs. This was the source of his ostensible trail name, but among ourselves we dubbed him "Axe Murderer" instead. The other hiker, an older gentleman going southbound was strongly suspected of being the shelter snorer, which is why he was instantly (and surreptitiously) dubbed "Snorchestra".The trail headed down to the valley then became rather more confused as it headed circuitously along a river then up and back down a creekbed via a switchback that had me confused when I could hear some of the others talking as they hiked but didn't catch up to them for a couple more miles.This was a part of the AT that was famous for having a zip line across the river to the home of a trail angel called The Captain, who was as famous for his zip line as he was for the free camping space and the cold sodas he offered to passing hikers. But alas it seems he was no longer in business and instead all we had was a very loud Alsatian to show that we were near his home.We hiked on to Pine Swamp Branch shelter, which was both particularly appealing -- it had a fireplace in the far wall of the three-wall stone shelter. which would have been perfect for a cold and wet day -- but also off limits, supposedly because of being threatened by dead trees. In truth, we couldn't see any directly threatening trees and it looked pretty much like every other shelter we'd slept in for the past month.But we weren't aiming to stay anyway and it was a sunny hot morning. Instead we hiked another mile to the last creek crossing to fill up before the start of the big climb back onto the latest ridge. After the directness of the trail up to now, we thought the ascent would be a similarly brutal affair but in reality it was remarkably well graded, switchbacking up the hill at a wholly civilised grade. Once on the ridge, we were literally astride once again the Virginia-West Virginia border for the first time in about 300 miles. The ridge was mostly viewless and featureless, other than going through some semi-cleared areas that were in the process of being reclaimed by the forest and past a few old apple trees which were once again absolutely laden with ripe fruit. "This is sobo privilege!" I told the others. "Nobos don't get the benefit of this!" But they were too busy harvesting apples to pay me any attention.In time, we crossed a power line -- usually the only source of views on these forested ridges -- and then went past an AT&T cellphone station, which was possibly the only time when my phone registered better service than Verizon. An hour after that, we were striding towards the end of the ridge, which was truncated where the New River had cut through an ancient mountain ridge, when we suddenly came across the clearing containing Ricefield shelter. The shelter was nothing to write home about but the cleared area around it was something special.Unusually, I was near the front at that point (mostly because the others had stopped at the weakest of trickling springs to fill their water supplies) and any thoughts about heading on instantly evaporated. As the others arrived in dribs and drabs, they too came to a separate but congruous decision. We had enough light left to go hunting for wood for a fire. Snorchestra, our suspected vocal companion of the previous night, arrived and headed to the shelter. I asked him if he'd brought a tent and he said he hadn't, thinking it wouldn't be too busy on the AT at that time of year. The sunset was everything we thought it would be. Most of the others are cowboy camping but even within an hour of dusk, it was clear there was going to be a massive dew overnight, prompting me to retreat to the shelter too.This is a really special spot, and we'll still get to town in time for a late breakfast. WIN!Life is good.AT fact of the day: It was odd to be back in West Virginia again, albeit briefly. There's a lot of talk about the "Virginia blues", because the AT stays in one state for one quarter of its overall distance and the trail itself tends to be on long, flat and forested ridgelines. But it's only going to take us about a month to get through Virginia and anyone who complains about that probably isn't well suited to the PCT, where it took three and a half months -- basically as long as we've been on the AT, crossing 11 states from Maine to Virginia -- to cross my first state border and enter Oregon.