Date: 2015-05-14
From: stream, campsite, north of Dismal Falls

To: Cross Ave. VA 634, Pearisburg
Miles today: 23.7
Weather: broken clouds

Today started out cool once again: my cold hands required fleece gloves to take down my tent in the morning, after breakfast "in bed" with a nice view of the stream...who needs tv?The Trail was nearly flat for the first 6 miles of the day, so we started off at a good clip, and were joined by Flask for a short time, chatting as we went. There are some frequently occurring Trail phenomena that we decided to make up words for, over the past weeks. I will try and describe that for you, as an addition to my previous "random thoughts". Most hikers carry a pair of trekking poles. These help us keep balance, especially on tricky downhill sections, but also on uphills, when tired, they assist by helping haul you onward with a bit of arm muscle. As you walk along they also seem to act as debris collectors, primarily dead leaves. I call this "leavches" (combination of leaves and leeches, as they tend to hang on there until removed intentionally. As an aside, that's another random thought one has...do I remove them immediately, or do I wait to see if they fall off on their own, or do I drag the stick to remove them, or do I step them off with my foot, and so on). Often, the poles get stuck between rocks and roots, so as you're stepping forward they remain behind. Single Speed came up with the term "pole-loc" for that. Flask especially laughed at that one, saying he's part Polish, haha, he wasn't quite offended. Flask's contribution (he said he spent a whole day trying to come up with this) is when you trip or stub your toe over a rock or root, it's called a "pace-breaker". Single Speed and I teamed up on when you step on one end of a stick and the other end of it bounces up to hit you, that's a "stick-up" but if it also leaves a mark on your foot or leg, that's called a "stick-bite". I'm sure there will be more to add to this dictionary as time goes by. Meanwhile, back to the day at hand: I arrived at the next shelter for a break, and it was deserted but for Single Speed, as pre-arranged...he had motored ahead of me for several miles. During our lunch break it was decided that our hiking style was no longer aligning nicely, so we split up to "hike our own hikes" once again. I spent the afternoon walking a dry, damaged forest ridge, and at one point stopped to, um, "water a tree" and spotted the yellow lady slippers which would have otherwise gone unobserved. Later, I arrived at the last shelter of this section, hoping to find a nice place to "land" for the day. But the privy had been left mess, and more importantly, the water supply was barely a trickle. I moved on, to find that the next two advertised springs were merely wet spots across the path. And so I resigned myself to another several miles hiking into Pearisburg a day early, making for another very long day, completely parched and out of water. But then, Bingo! Trail magic when I arrived at the road: a bag of Gala apples dangling from a handrail. Perfect temporary hunger and thirst quencher as I walked the mile into town. I was gratefully appalled (oxymoron, agreed) to check into the "nicer" of the two retro "dives" on the main street (no names mentioned, in order to protect the "innocent"), which I'm sure hasn't been upgraded for at least 5 decades, see pics. The first hot shower still seemed like paradise, so long as it was taken with eyes closed to the tub I was standing in. Seriously, though, one does learn to overlook cosmetics so long as food, bathing, and bed requirements have been met! With flush toilet, microwave, mini-fridge and flat-screen tv being icing on the cake!