Date: 2007-05-22
From: Wise Shelter

To: Hartley's mountain home in Independence, VA
Miles today: 16.1
Weather: scattered clouds

All except Birdman up and moving before 7. Sunny to partly sunny day. Fuzzy Monkey, Big Brother, and Sprocket came over for breakfast after tenting nearby. Again it's a day full of quips and jokes drawn from our previous shleter nights together. At the early breakfast time, Take It Easy helped Persistent track and kill a nasty-looking spider that fell out of her shoe. Spiders are everywhere! Rough, stony up and down hike for an hour or so just after leaving the shelter. We ran into Stitches and she introduced us to her friend, Leapfrog. They'd shuttled up to Dickey's Gap to hike south back to Damascus. It was good to have another visit with Stitches. As usual, we stopped during the morning for me to strip off outer warm layers. Our group(Persistent, Melk, JB, Corker, Sprocket, Big Brother, and us) ate lunch together on rocks next to the rapid stream below Hurricane Shelter. Red's Man and Nimrod went up to Hurricane Shelter for lunch. We heard it's a great, new shelter that hasn't been defaced with graffitti! It's a shame it's an uphill climb off the trail to get to it, otherwise we'd all have gone up there for lunch. But we decided to conserve our energy, instead. Like yesterday's path, today's trail had few switchbacks. Just steadyu weaving up and around the mountains. Not having many switchbacks makes me feel as if I'm making rapid progress; moreso than when doing lots of switchbacks on the side of one mountain when you look up and down and can see that you're spending an hour traversing one particular mountain. Toady's goal is shared by more than 90% of the group: make it to Jerry's Kitchen and Goods in Troutdale for "the best burger on the trail". Everyone except Corker, Red's Man, Nimrod, and Big Brother are going to go in there to eat, resupply, and perhaps spend the night in the hostel. There's a beautiful waterfall a mile or so before the road crossing. Seeing the cascading falls, hearing the rushing and splashing, and smelling the fresh mist rejuevenated me and refreshed my appreciation of the beauty of nature out here on the trail. It wasn't but about 30 minutes after the falls we emerged onto the road to Troutdale. Big Brother said goodbye to us there. Waterfall(another hiker) was there, too, waiting to get a hitch to the hostel. With so many of us there was plenty of joking about getting hitches, who would be first or last to get a ride, etc.. What a fun group! After unsuccessfully trying to interest 10 passing drivers in giving us rides, up drove an SUV that The Band Aid Kid and Alpine Strider hopped out of--it was Jerry, the hostel&restaurant owner returning them to the trail!! What luck! He shuttled us in two trips to his restaurant. By about 2:30 we all sat together at a big table, looking like happy, ravenous, but content hikers. The group did what we're good at: laughing, eating, and enjoying each other's company. Take It Easy finally got through to his sister, Linda, by using Jerry's landline. She and her husband will be here in about an hour to pick us up. Goodbyes were said all around when the group got up to go to the hostel. We talked with Jerry and his wife, Suzzana some. They recently moved from Newport News to Troutdale. Small world. The Hartley's arrived at 5:30. We ate dinner(yes, I know we'd just finished our lunches less than 2 hrs before ) together there. Because we stayed into dinnertime, we got to say another farewell to Melk and wave at Persistent as she was on the parking lot payphone. Waving goodbye, we left our trail friends and returned to civilization. We sure got to know so many good people on the trail, saw beautiful sights, experienced so much. Back to the real world we go. Take It Easy and I will miss so many aspects of trail life, the hiker community and nature. We plan to return next April and pick up where we left off. Looking forward to future happy trails and meeting next year's hikers. To all you hikers out there: Hi! We wish you happy and healthy trails!