Date: 2016-06-11
From: harpers creek shelter

To: gravel road camp site
Miles today: 36.7

Dregs here, We are behind quite a few days so I will be covering a lot of ground with very little detail. After carful consideration I have decided that it is Stormtroopers fault that our journal is out of date. We have been sharing camp with him and having campfires in the evening leaving no time before bed to write.Day 61On this day we hiked from a campsite just before Cornelius creek shelter to the camping area of Matts Creek shelter. It's was 19.5 miles and set us up for a quick trip to Glasgow VA in the morning. It was one of the hottest days on the trail so far and there were lots of day hikers out. The shelter had tons of camping space and a creek running right through it. I soaked my aching feet in the ice cold creek and they felt great all night. We met a Canadian guy who was just a week into his hike heading north to Maine. StormTrooper named him Gentle Giant. Chia pet showed up and we all chatted over a fire before bed. It is also worth noting that this shelter had the nicest privy so far. I would go into detail however I didn't go in myself. Day 62This day was a bit more eventful. We woke up and walked the rest of the way down a mountain and along the James River. It was a beautiful scenic crossing over the James River foot bridge. This put us on a road where we need to hitchhike into town. Schnitzel was also trying to hitch but from the wrong side of the road. We were able to get a man who was getting ready to do some kayaking and who was already doing some drinking at 10 AM, to take us into town and we even convinced him to take schnitzel. Glasgow was great. We resupplied at dollar general and got snacks. We walked to a free hiker shelter and packed our food. They had a hot outdoor shower that we all used as well. The last part of the plan was that Chicken Hawk, StormTrooper, and I would get some pizza before hitching back. We invited Gentle Giant to come along too. The pizzas were great and huge. Everyone ate way to much. We needed to walk out of town to hitch. The first guy who stopped took Schnitzel and another hiker but had no room for us. We made it back and started a huge climb in the heat.The tons of greasy pizza in our stomachs made us thirsty. The 90 plus degree weather made us thirsty. The over 2000 ft climb made us thirsty. We all ran out of water. Chicken Hawk, StormTrooper, and Dregs. All of us. We would need to take a 1 mile detour to get water but at least then we wouldn't need to go all the way to the shelter. We got to the trail and all pulled out our various water containers. This is when StormTrooper realized he had a 1/2 liter left which we promptly split up and drank. And then the trail to water was impassable....we had to go dry all the way to the shelter, another 3.2 miles. After being mostly dry for a mile......we got to the crowded punchbowl shelter and were sad to see the water source was a brown lake. I drank 2L of brown lake water as fast I could filter it. Same for Chicken hawk. We had lots of friends staying at punchbowl shelter but it was way too crowded and StormTrooper had a friend coming to meet him a bit farther north. Firecracker, Blue Sky, and Bombay were all there. As we left 6 more hikers came in.We found campsites and better water right after the spot that StormTroopers friend was going to meet us. She was awesome and brought fried chicken and fruit. We caught a great sunset and stayed up late talking. Lots of highs and lows in one day. One of the most eventful days yet. In total with the resupply and restaurant stop it was 17.2 miles.