Date: 2009-06-08
From: VA725 Parking Lot

To: Rod Hollow Shelter
Miles today: 15.1
Weather: few clouds

June 8 --A very tiring day, and it continues in my tent here at the Rod Hollow Shelter as I unavoidably listen to the modulating chatter, nearly non-stop, and, of course, is conversing with voices too soft to understand, no matter, they are only 5% of the conversation. I stopped walking before 18:00 weighing the options for 10 minutes at the crossroads of the 0.2m shelter trail and the AT, deciding that 2-3 more miles won't significantly impact my arrival time at Harper's Ferry on Wednesday. Last night's sleep was horrible and it is somewhat curious that as I passed under the I-66 underpass on VA725 after crossing VA55, I looked up at the slanted concrete embankment to where it met the roadway, at the ledge that it created. I once slept in a similar place in the summer of '71 after coming back from Denver and the Triumph 750 died on I-81 near Abingdon, VA. We ditched the bike in storage and hitched on the I-81 entrance ramp 'til dark and when the rain started, the only shelter was under the overpass which also became the sleeping quarters. The next morning was my introduction to long distance hiking, backpacking. We were picked up by a medical student who had been on the trail for a while and eventually stopped and offered to share lunch. Great, he lowered the tailgate of the old station wagon and spread out plactic bags of dehydrated powdery stuff, no too unlike what I have right here in my pack. I recalled most of the rest of that trip as I followed the white blazes down VA725 a short way into a gravel parking lot on the right with a picnic table and a tent, Minnesota I.P.A.'s MSR tent, near the brook. It was very reminisent of the Abingdon overpass episode, almost non-stop hiway traffic, my favorite being the occasional morons who cut the exit approach and hit the scalloped pavement warning grooves, tires moaning in protest. During the night when there was a break in the traffic, the brook was a constant rushing, like a large fan. Second straight night of bad sleep leading to a tiring day. The temperature was quick to heat up and I was guzzling and sweating early, and the eyeball bugs, that normally would wait until ~14:00 to become active, started before 10:00 I guess to compete with the horseflies and gnats. The uphills were tough all day and the trail was varied to extremes, when rocky it was very slow, when flat and smooth it was fast, and when muddy it was wide, 10' sometimes, and slippery to sticky, but the worst was just before the shelter trail wheen I went to cross the second sloppy, wide stream, I slipped, stepped backward and tripped, and fell, slowly, backward onto my pack. I got up 0k, nothing hurt and the shelter trail was less than two minutes away, where I recognized how tiring the day was and how tired I was having bugs in my face and biting me and my newest piss off, trailovergrowth, esp face high or higher. Today I met Golden Bear and Grasshopper on their way to Harper's Ferry where Golden Bear will be joined by 357Magnum and thru hike to ME then flip-flop back to Harper's Ferry and complete southbound. Later, in the afternoon when I was crossing US50, a divided hiway, a guy was parked on the shoulder offered me a cold soda, I investigated, had an ice cold can of A&W, he was 357 Magnum and had been waiting for Golden Bear and Grasshopper to come along, with a little trail magic. My watch battery died today, the camera is the official timepiece. The trail was a tough place today and the adventure continues as immature filbert sized black walnuts are falling occasionally on my tent fly, thumping off like a trampoline. And the trail seemed more like a jungle than a woods with its thick undergrowth of grapevines, honeysuckle and weeds, and oversupply of bugs. I have nervously eaten tomorrow's ration of trail mix.