Date: 2008-05-12
From: Whitetop Mtn 

To: Grayson Highlands/Massie Gap
Miles today: 9.6

The rain and wind buffeted my little Clip Flashlite all night long but it stayed warm(enough) and dry inside. It was 48 degrees inside the tent but quite warm in the sleeping bag. Not a situation where you are highly motivated to get going for the day. Lipstick came over fairly early to see what Twinkletoes and I were thinking and we then convened in her Explorer to confer. Without Lipstick and "Trail Angel"(the Ford Explorer) I was looking at a while in the tent w/ NPR. However, a much more palatable option emerged which we pursued. Pack up and head down off Whitetop to see who around this area served hot food. Packing up was not a great deal of fun that morning(misty rains were lashing up in stiff wind laced w/ sleet)but thoughts of a warm ride out of this gale sped the process along. No feeling in your fingers can be a plus.....doesn't aid dexterity much tho. Lipstick is one of these AT phenomena who defy all life's normal predictability. She didn't know the area but steered that Explorer directly to Jerry's Kitchen in Troutdale, VA. There we feasted on GREAT breakfasts of things like pancakes,sausage gravy over biscuits or omelets. Jerry's fortified us so well that two of us(Racoon and I) no longer thought Whitetop or Mt Rodgers would stop us from hiking today(packless and w/ motel room for the night). Twinkletoes decided to stay at the nearby hostel for the day so of 3 of us went back up to Whitetop. Lipstick dropped us off w/ a saftey net of a meeting in the gap between the two peaks less than 3 miles into our 10 mile day. At Deep Gap we felt good and the rains had ceased so we kept at it. Winds atop Mt Rodgers had been our biggest worry for the 10 miles but the winds in that gap proved to be the worst, at times blowing us a few steps sideways in the grassy pasture we traversed. Back in the forests we met a group descending the trail, one of whom had had a really uncomfortable night in Thomas Knob shelter. An older fellow, he and most of his gear, had gotten wet the day before and he had gotten borderline hypothermic during the night. A ridge runner(an employee of the ATC) had been called by one of the other guys to come assist and when we met he(ridge runnner) was carrying the ailing man's backpack as well as his own. The 3 other hikers had crammed most of the extra gear in their own packs to lighten the Ridgerunner's load. (the next day we again ran across the ridgerunner at lunch and he credited those other 3 hikers w/ preventing the older fellow w/ getting into really dangerous circumstances. He didn't elaborate but they had to have done something to help the man preserve body heat during the night, not easy to do in a wet sleeping bag. This brings up one point I have found along the hike. You DO NOT let yourself get in a situation where you do not have some dry clothes and a dry sleeping bag. At night you MUST have those two things. You can hike in wet/cold clothes. If you don't have such you had better have a good headlamp because you must continue hiking(as I have heard of at least one ultralight hiker has done)all night.Upon our meeting heading up Mt Rodgers, the Ridgerunner quizzed Racoon and me enough to find out that we were thru hikers (since we were not carrying packs). He was satisfied that we knew enough to keep out of trouble in high winds and lower temps and off we went. I mulled over whether I was prepared but since I had long-john bottoms on(the only day of the entire hike I've been able to keep those on more than one hour-they always make you hot)plus a raincoat that totally blocks wind I figured I'd be OK. I was right. The trail gods smiled and we never got wet. The winds, though really stiff in gusts, were nowhere near as bad as they could have been atop Mt Rodgers. Our most challenging obstacle was all the rocks you have to negotiate on this terrain. We were even blessed w/ spectacular views of sunlight periodically breaking through the cloud cover during our last 1/2 mile of the hike. Lipstick wasn't at our appointed pickup point(a parking area of Grayson Highlands SP) as she had driven Pick to a pay phone, who along with Rabid, Thinker,Toze,Spidey,No Amp and two section hikers had decided to head to a hostel in Damascus. They said the past night had been no fun for them, having been wet from yesterday's soaking in the thunderstorm. It was good to see our companions but a funny feeling to have sort of switched groups due to such a seemingly benign act as waiting out a storm. I was lucky to have gotten the Trail Magic of Lipstick's generosity and felt very grateful for it. We drove out, heading for Marion and a motel stay. I knew I had gotten very luck these two days not to have ever gotten wet or cold. We even got over Mt Rodgers w/o wind inflicted chill. Mighty nice!!Later, Alec