Date: 2009-06-10
To: Southgate Adventure Day 5
Miles today: 0.0

Ken M, Luke & John were in a shelter last night. The Hepp family was at a hotel, Sam & Austin were at Bear's Den Hostel and everyone else stayed at Harper's Ferry Hostel. Jim, David and I headed southe first thing this morning to intercept Sam & Austin at VA 605...the same place I put other hikers on the first morning of the hike (Sunday). We stopped at Wal-Mart in Charles Town to restock on sodas, ice, water and fresh fruit for the hikers. We were a little worried we might get there too late. If Sam and Austin got an early start they might already be past that spot by the time we arrived. Especially if they were making good time. We were there for a while doing trail magic for northbound thru hikers and none of them had seen any southbounders that day, so we knew Sam and Austin hadn't passed by yet. At 10:30 or so, a couple of cars pulled up and who do you think popped out? Sam & Austin. For those of you not fully versed in hiker talk, that means they were yellow blazing. Instead of following the white Appalachian Trail blazes through the woods, they were following the yellow blazes painted down the middle of the road from the back seat of a nice comfortable car. BUSTED!!! Sam explained that they socialized with a crowd of wonderful people for so long that morning that he knew there was no way he could make it to his planned destination that day. So some of the people staying at Bear's Den with them offered to deliver them a little farther down the trail. One of the drivers was Queen Diva...she ran Bear's Den hostel in 2007 when I stayed there, so it was nice to see her again. She is now involved in a trail ministry. To learn more about it visit www.atreststops.com. We had a great visit but there were miles to hike so we all huddled for prayer and Queen Diva said a prayer for everyone and we all went in our respective directions. For Jim, David and I that was back north to try to rendezvous with Ken M, Luke and John. I stopped at Wal Mart again for yet more supplies...we went through a lot at that last stop, which was great! This time we picked up some Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia ice cream for our hikers since we knew we'd be seeing them soon. They had to wait for us to arrive, but I think the ice cream made the wait worth it. At least a dozen other hikers came through while we were there...we had a blast. I ran some down the road to a restaurant in a couple of different runs. We took a bunch of stuff out of Ken M and Luke's packs and made3 plans to meet them at the road crossing just before the shelter where they were planning to spend the night. Once all the thru-hikers moved through, we headed to Washington Monument State Park to meet up with the Dan & Cindy H, Manuel, Pat, Ken the Older, Ken the Younger and Linda. From there, David jumped over into the Hepp van and Jim and I headed north to where we were supposed to meet Ken M, Luke and John. While waiting there, a car pulled in with two section hikers. After talking with them for a while we realized we had met on my 2007 hike. We had a good visit and got caught up as we waited for our hikers to arrive. Once they arrived and we visited a bit, John hiked on to his shelter, but Ken M, Luke, Jim and I ran in to town for a burger and onion rings. We made plans to meet them at the same road crossing the next morning at 8:30 to lighten their loads before they hiked the rest of the way into PA. Jim and I then headed back to Harper's Ferry Hostel for the night/. What a fun and fruitful day of trail magic it was!