Date: 2004-07-01
From: Waynesboro, VA

To: Harpers Ferry, WV
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: haze

I passed the 1000 mile mark at 4:00 today (june 30). I made it in and out of virginia in less than a month. Right now i am in knoxville, MD at the Roberts' house (irma's new in-laws, and tara who hiked sobo last year).Got some good and bad news via email. Peter hiked out of damascus a couple days ago but had to get off after 80 miles because his quad hurt so bad. Went to the hospital in perisberg and discovered he has tendonitis and needs to rest at least 6 months. The other bad news is that i lost a memory card. Ben got the envelope and it was torn open and the card was gone. It had 220 miles worth of pictures inlcuding mcAffee's knob and a hiker who looked exactly like prof. looft. The final bad news was that there was an ECE dept. server shutdown, but that didn't exactly affect me at all.I will write about the last section of the trail first, then i will continue the previous entry that was cut off when the library closed, so you might need to skip down if you missed it.I hiked with Roadrunner through most of shenandoah natl' park. We didn't get to the trail until about 11 on friday morning, so we cut our 30 mile day down to 20. The deadline for the 160 mile section was to get to the ATC office in harpers ferry by 7:00 on wednesday so tara could pick us up. Lukily there was enough slack in the schedule that I was able to shuffle it around and still stay at shelters every night. We shared the shelter with talltale and mr. t and mr.T's parents and friends. Talltale and Mr. T were thru-hikers, and had 6 others along for the shenandoahs since they're supposed to be the easiest part of the trail. The hiked 13 miles from the last shelter and were in pretty bad shape. I think they cut the trip short and car-camped the rest of SNP.The Blue Ridge Parkway, which crossed the trail several times before waynesboro, turns into skyline drive in SNP. It runs pretty much next to the trail for most of the way through, meaning you can hear cars most of the time in the park, and we had to cross the road 45 times in 110 miles. The good side is that there are lots of day hikers, lots of section hikers, and 4 different stores/restaurants to stop at near the trail. The food is expensive, but they make a really good blackberry shake (I think it was overrated, but it was better than an ordinary milkshake). The problem with these places (called waysides) is that you stop there, sit on the lawn, and chat with other hikers for hours on end. I didn't get to a shelter before 8 at all in the entire park.Another interesting part about SNP is that because of all the people, lots of the animals are very tame. Most of the time, deer don't run from you, they just walk off the trail a few feet and wait for you to go by (like you wish downhill day/section hikers would do more often). I did manage to spot 9 bears in the space of 3 days. Luckily? they all ran away(it would have been nice to get a picture, but i would prefer they just run away). Most were full size, but i did see one that was definetly a cub, but i didn't see a mom around.At one shelter i stayed at, there were 2 guys who were the most obnoxious guys i have met on the trail. I ended up writing about 5 pages in the shelter log about them. Luckily i took pictures of what i wrote, so if this card doesn't get lost in the mail, ben will post them (or if he's really bored, he might even transcribe it?). Most of the shelters were close to full the entire way through. This is because there are so many section hikers, it's illegal to camp along the trail, and the shelters are so far apart (10-15 miles, as opposed to 6-10 everywhere else). The last shelter in SNP had 19 people staying in the shelter and around it in tents.Once i got out of the shenandoas, the terrain was noticeably more difficult. I had a deadline to get to harpers ferry by 7:00 on wednesday, giving me 2 days to hike just under 60 miles. This was the first time i had an actual deadline that someone else was dependent on, so the pressure was on. For the first time since i started, i felt like i needed to get to harpers and the 60 miles of trail was an obstacle in my way. Thinking like this is not good, the journey along the trail is the reason i am hiking. I decided that i have had enough 30+ mile days, and i was ready to take it alot easier. I planned a schedule through PA that takes me barely 20 miles a day and stops in every hostel and town possible. If that does not fix my mentality, then i'll have to think of something else.I have also revised my overall schedule. I basically trimmed it down to 20 mile days, and added a few zeros into it. I should still finish in august, but i think that the second half of the hike will have a very different pace than the first half. This doesn't mean i regret doing 30 mile days for the past few weeks - just that i think i have had enough of them for now. The other factor is that before harpers ferry, i know noone along the trail, and i have generally not been anywhere there before. Now that i am getting to the northern half, i know lots of people along the trail who will probably visit me, so i actually have a reason to slow down. The sothern half, i just wanted to catch up with the bulk of the through hikers (done) and get somewhere closer to home (done).I need to get to bed now before it is too late. Roadrunner got to the ATC office in the afternoon and was thru-hiker #499. I don't think there was anyone between us, so if i get there by 9 tomorrow, i can be NOBO'04 #500. I will be taking a zero tomorrow, so will probably throw up another post, a revised schedule, and even finish my last post.