Date: 2009-05-13
From: Laurel Creek

To: VA611
Miles today: 15.9

May 13-- On yesterday's long climb up Chestnut Ridge to Chestnut Knob Shelter, ~2300' to ~4400'in over ~4m, I met Bill jr of Bill&Bill, Gus and his cousin Ten Beers, section hikers. Later, after a walk past Jenkins Shelter, I met Many Names, who was tenting at a beautiful tent site on the creek edge. She packed a small guitar and was heading for Trail Days, so I asked her to stop off at The Apple Tree B&B and say hi to Debbie and Les for me. Continuing with yesterday, the trail had a rocky tone up there past Walker Gap and the relatively flat profile on the map is only a hint of what to expect. The rocks add anoter dimension, PA like, frustrating, tiring, toe tomenting, and I walked past sunsetas the fading light illuminated the curtain of green, now hiding beyond. The many greeens, named learned from Binney & Smith Crayola and the Testor 15 cent model paints, Kelly, which dominates, Emerald, everywhere as velvety moss carpets, Lime, seen as the new growth on the hemlocks against Hunter, the old foliage. The last light of the day has always seemed to have a different kind of glow, maybe its the tail end of sunlight that loses a little bit as it travels its way to earth. It was always the best time to ride the motorcycle on the back country farm roads in DE. For today, all went well, another cool, sunny day that took me to Bland, VA, a lovely place, mainly for restock. Shortly after starting out I met Hot Pants, named by Knickers, and we walked together, and talked for several miles until Rt52, my road to Bland. We had actually past it, at that point the trail was a road, and luckily, Alan, who was ahead of us, passed it too asn had turned aroundwalking toward us. So I left Hot Pants and joined Alan and headed back about 100yds to the intersection where a car stopped, asked if we were going to town and opened the back for our packs! The 2.5m ride seemed to take 2 minutes and we were dropped off right at the post office. I got my stuff 0k and was repacking my stuff inside the PO during which several local folks came in to check their mail boxes, one gentleman and I exchanged greetings. I then beelined for Bruce's Market IGA and found myself where I've regretted being many times before, hungry in a grocery store. My arms were full before I found a hand basket for my stuff which I quickly filled. Outside, I carried my goods to the bench in front of the Bland County Court House right across the street where I publicly pigged out, gobbling down the 800cal pack of Peanut Butter sugar wafer cookies, then went for the 8oz block of mozerella with the $1.29 bag of Fritos, washing it down with a pint of chocolate milk. The rest, a small jar of peanut butter, a bag of Snyder's honey mustard pretzel snacks, an 8oz block of Colby and a yellow delicious apple for lunch tomorrow, and the discontinued easter bunny candy and malted milk balls went into the pack. The marked down pint of blackberries I kept out as snack for the trail. After a breif stop at the library I mailed some stuff home and hit the Citgo/diner for a bacon cheeseburger, wedge fries and a root beer. I dont know which, the root beer or the chocolate milk, have I had more recently, its been probly decades for both. Now late in the afternoon I walked to the edge of town to hitch back. Traffic was very light, minutes between cars. Then, going into town, a car slowed, I knew that guy, pulled along the shoulder, U-turned and stopped, it was the gentleman from the PO, and he remembered me, Fred his name and we chatted, as he made me laugh more than once before delivering me safely. I was light on water and I reached the Helveys Mill Shelter in 38 minutes at 18:00, too early even though I felt like resting with this now full, overstuffed pack, 0k, I forgot about the 6pack of bagels too, so I decided to continue to VA611 another 6.7m, the profile looked easy, besides, the shelter was 1/4m off the trail and the water was a steep downhill beyond that. I arrived here at VA611 about 20:30, no water source and found a spot just off the road. There's a lot of howling and tree creaking with the wind, and earlier there was something crawling in the leaves in the vestibule. Damn, I though, mice in the middle of no where? Well, the "mouse" turned out to be a big old June bug going after my light, it has been buzzing and crawling all over the fly.