Date: 2015-05-28
From: harpers creek

To: Paul C. Wolfe camping area
Miles today: 22.2
Weather: overcast clouds

What a night's sleep. Well, not really. We went to sleep early as we thought we were tired. But, we woke at o'dark thirty wide awake.   We knew we could not start hiking yet, so we laid in our tent listening to other hikers move around on their sleeping pads. There were about six tents in our camping area. It seemed each tent had different sounds coming from them. And, then an owl started hooting. The moon was shining bright, shining directly into our tent. With all these factors combined, trying going back to sleep. And, the whole time in your mind your are thinking, "we have to climb Three Ridges tomorrow". Oh and add the humidity factor into all of this. Yes, it was a very long night. We finally got back to sleep, well, until 5:30. Since we were tired from being upmost of the night, we didn't really start moving until 6:10.    Zero, or his name is now Trudge, was eating breakfast as we started hiking. He said we were quick to get started. We hear this often ftom other hikers. We have become so efficient in breaking camp and setting up camp. We have have a place for everything in our little home. Count said in the wee hours of the morning that he likes our "home". We may become true minimalists after this hike!   Today started with the remainder of the 3000 foot climb. We climbed for over two hours to get to the top of Three Ridges. We took a little break at Chimney Rock, about 1/3 of our climb this morning. The trail had lots of switchbacks on the way up. It was a big climb, but we made it. Funny when we reached the top, there was no view, nothing special to see, just the trail starting to descend. And descend we did, over lots and lots and lots of rocks. If there is a rock in Virginia, the AT must go over it! The descent was 1300 feet. The descents are harder on our bodies then the ascents. We seem to get our hiking poles stuck in crevasses, trip over the rocks or roll over the little twigs on the path. Lavender seems to find every twig on the trail. And, that really helps with the healing of her hip pain! We made it to Maupin Field Shelter to filter water. We met a section hiker, Bear (our first bear sighting) and an overnight hiking couple, Sarah and Bum Foot (he thru-hiked the AT South Bound in 2005). Bum Foot and Sarah were heading back to civilization today. We recived trail magic from them they gave us their leftover food. We scored!! They gave us 6 chocolate chip cookies which we inhaled immediately, pepperoni, 1/2lb cheese and two tortillas. We resisted the urge to eat everthing. It will be hard to wait for dinner to come so we can eat everything they gave us.   We are limited on food and we go into town to resupply in a day! We thanked them profusely as they headed up the trail. Trudge came into the shelter. And, we started discussing the Corp ethics training. It was a lively conversation as we shared stories from our careers. We soon departed the shelter and started our easy part of the hiking today. We were near the BRP. The trail level, no rocks and someone had just did trail maintenance and trimmed the weeds. Oh, it was a walk in the park. We even found a rubbish bin and we threw away our rubbish. But, the glorious feeling ended. We crossed the BRP and boom, were walking on rocks. We walked on rocks the rest of the day. We even ate lunch on a rock! We saw the sky darkening. So, we cut our lunch short. Sounds like yesterday, but, today we weren't so lucky with the rain. It started to rain and rained for about an hour. Lavender's poncho worked great. And, she even used her gators for the first time. She was dry. We crossed back over the BRP, the rocks were still there but so was trail magic! There was a cooler with soda, gator aid, and Pepperidge Farm goldfish. We each took took a package of goldfish for a snack tonight and we each guzzled a soda in record time, even with the rain falling in our eyes, we drank every last drop of soda.   We continued up the trail to find more trail magic. This time it was bottles of water. We met Outlier here. We hiked with her the rest of the day. The miles passed quickly as we talked with Outlier. She told us stories of hiking with other hikers. She had made a game to come up with names of common things that happen on the trail - like stepping on a twig and it rolls (something Lavender does all the time) is called a footsie roll. It seemed to take forever to reach our destination today - mainly because of of the trail terrain. We finally made it to the shelter and camping area. This is the last camping area before the road to Waynesboro. We came into the area late. The prime tent sites were gone. Thankfully, we found one down the hill. We set up camp. There is a stream with lots of small waterfalls. We cleaned off with the water from the falls. Oh, it took our breath away, but it also took away the sweat. It felt good! We were hungry, hungry. Remember the trail magic from Bum Foot? We had a special dinner tonight. Yum, we had Mexican rice with 10 pieces each of pepperoni on tortillas. It tasted so good. We finished off dinner with the other trail magic of goldfish. It doesn't get much better than this on the day before resupply.    As we were finishing dinner, Tredge came into the area. He told us he had seen seen a bear about 20 minutes back on the trail.   Someone else had seen a huge black snake. We were glad we missed the snake. But would have liked to see the bear.   Guess we are hanging our food bag - one packet of poptarts, one tablespoon of peanut butter and our dinner rubbish - tonight.    Our feet our sore again tonight from the rock scrambling we did today. We have the sound of waterfalls, full tummies and only 5.1 miles into town tomorrow.   We should sleep well if no bear comes over the hill.