Date: 2004-06-24
From: Perisburg, VA

To: Waynesboro, VA
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: scattered clouds

I just found out i got a spot in the NYC marathon lottery. That means that after walking 30+ miles a day with a backpack, i have to figure out how to do 26 in just a few hours. Luckily i caught up with roadrunner (greg, who i started with) after not seeing him for over 400 miles. He has run multiple marathons, so probably has some good advice.I made it to waynesboro, finally - barely 150 miles left in virginia. Virginia is over 500 miles long - almost a quarter of the trail - so it's a big mental hurdle to be in the same state for so long. I hiked some long days in the past week - between 9 AM sunday and 9 AM wednesday- 72 hours - i hiked 112 miles. Of course, because of that, i am sore for the first time since damascus, and i have decided to take a zero day here in waynesboro.My half hour on the internet is already up, having spent most of it deleting spam emails and responding to a few others. I will be back later in the day after laundry and food shopping to write a full update....At Weasie's Kitchen, a restaurant in waynesboro, they have all you can eat pancakes any time of day. Roadrunner and i just went there for dinner. I could barely eat 7 1/2. Probably because i already ate a whole pizza for lunch ("new york style" pizza that actually tasted right!), plus a whole lot of food at the continental breakfast at the hotel, plus all you can eat chinese for dinner last night.I finally got out of perisberg by 2 in the afternoon on monday (the 14th?). I had to stay because i missed the post office on saturday morning and had to wait until monday. That afternoon, i felt horrible. I have a feeling it has to do with the fact that there are two or three large industrial factories near there and i have been used to clean woods air. My throat was sore and scratchy, i had a headache, and i could barely hike more than 1.5 miles/hr. I at least made it 8 miles to the first shelter. The next day i felt alot better, but still not great. I only did 16 miles and stopped early (it started to pour while i was there and i had no motivation to leave the shelter). There was a church group there of mostly 17 year old guys, which were far more entertaining than the older crowd that i meet in most shelters.I expected the trail to be filled with mostly college age people, but i have discovered that, at least the people that i have caught up with are different. about half are retired men and some women who are hiking because they finally have the time. Another quarter are the 30-50 year old group, most of wich either lost their job or had some other kind of dramatic change in their life. Only a handful are actually college age, but there are quite a few people a few years out of college and hiking to find some direction in their life.The following two days, i felt much better. I did about 25 miles each day. Virginia is supposed to be flat. While it might be lower in elevation than, say, the smokies, i think it has significantly more ups and downs, and alot of very rough terrain. (i also don't like to complain about it because it is all volunteer, but there are some sections that could GREATLY benefit from a little more trail maintenance). I had planned to do 30 miles the second day, but the terrain slowed me down. I stopped at 5:00 in catawba, and stayed at the 4 pines hostel. A guy has a 3 bay garage that he has as a donation-run hostel. He also gives rides into town to The Homeplace, a family-style AYCE restaurant that has AWESOME food.I finally got my legs bag and put in a 30 mile day to daleville/troutville. I passed mcAffee's Knob, one of the most photographed spots on the trail. I also met a group of hikers - little munchkin, sugarplum fairy, and d-bone, and kaya(munchkin's dog). Sugarplum had a maildrop in daleville, so he asked if i wanted to split a hotel room - which makes it alot cheaper. I got to the road about the same time as d-bone, and we both went to country cooking, a restaurant with an ayce salad/fruit/dessert bar. D-bone and kaya decided they would stay in the hotel, so it would be about $9 each, split four ways. We stayed at the comfort inn. Sugarplum wasn't going to get in until late, so i called the front desk and had an interesting conversation-"there's one more guy coming tonight that isn't here yet, could you give him a key when he arrives?""what's his name"(i ask d-bone and munchkin, they don't know either)"His name is Sugarplum Fairy, we don't know his real name"library is closing, so i have to cut off here. I should be in harpers ferry by next wednesday.************ resumed on 7/1In any event, the sugarplum fairy arrived and was granted access to the room only after an interesting conversation with the woman at the desk when he came in smelly, sweaty, and dirty, long after dark, looking for a 'short guy, i think his name is bilbo'I took my time getting resupply and doing laundry at the truck stop the next day, got out by 3:00 and made it 12 miles that afternoon. I went to the outfitter in troutdale ready to buy a suunto vector, which is an awesome watch that has an altimiter, barometer, thermometer, compass, in addition to every other standard watch feature. The killer feature is definitely the altimiter, it helps me guage how much i have to hike uphill, and helps me know when i am going up a false summit or if i am actually close to the top.The next day, i got up late and the weather was awesome. i fit in 30 miles even though i started after 10 or 11. The following day, i got up a bit earlier and fit in 34 miles. Day 3 in a row of good weather came in at 36 miles, and that included multiple 4000 foot peaks and sub-1000 foot rivers (one peak, The Priest, had 37 switchbacks on the way down - 3066 feet down in less than 4 miles). I caught up with roadrunner at maupin field shelter, after not seeing him since damascus almost 3 weeks before. The no-see-ems were really bad at that shelter and i got no sleep at all. As soon as it was light, i got up to leave and discovered noone else slept at all either. Roadrunner and i left by 5:20 and made it to the next shelter - 16 miles - by 11 or 12 when it started to pour. The past 4 days were beautiful, but i guess i had to keep with the tradition of pouring rain every time i got into town. We sat for a while and finally made it the last 4 miles to the rockfish gap visitor center. We met Big Tree who was just coming out of several zero days, waiting for the rain to stop. By the time we arrange a ride into town, goose caught up with us and the four of us decided to split a hotel room. For the second time in just over a week, i shared a hotel room with 3 other people i had met less than 8 hours before. (i guess i knew roadrunner before, but whatever). We stayed at the quality inn and we got the hiker rate, which means they gave us the hiker room that smelled almost as bad as we did.