Date: 2008-05-03
From: Campsite 0.1 miles past Wise Shelter

To: Partnership Shelter
Miles today: 30.5
Weather: scattered clouds

Whre - nice to be in my bag at the end of this long day. This is my second 30+ mile day but the first orthodox one (the last one was with The Goonies and involved lots of night hiking and pain).I got up about 7, not terribly early, and hit the trail around 7:30. I met a guy named Frito who thru-hiked a couple years ago and is now training to...do the AT twice in one year. It's called a yo-yo hike. He's gonna start at Springer, walk 2,176 miles to Katahdin, then turn around and walk back, all within a year. He's middle aged and a bit overweight, but he pats his belly jovially and says he's training to get rid of it.Later I found a box of Sprite soda cans on the trail...while I was drinking one a girl named Bottlecap came up and gave me a brownie and said she was doing trail magic yesterday and was about to leave. She got 1000 miles into a thru-hike last year before getting off the trail. Apparently a lot of people get off there because Virginia is such a mental drainer, 550 miles of the trail lying within it. I asked her if you feet ever stopped hurting and she said no...that wasn't very encouraging. Then I asked her if Virginia is flatter or easier than the rest of the trail (thru-hikers seem to be divided on this), and she said she didn't know where "that rumor" came from and that VA was just as hard as the rest of the AT.Which is strange, because I then took off across one of the flattest days I've had. Everyone's "big goal" for the day was Trimpi shelter, 20 miles away, but I got there at 3:00, too early to stop (although it had just started to rain pretty hard). So I figured I'd keep going but I wasn't sure if I'd make it to Partnership shelter, 11 miles away. This is a famous shelter and completely atypical of AT shelters. It is:a) Right by a road where the Mt. Rogers visitors center is, with phones you can use to *order pizza* (possibly the most famous thing about this shelter)b) Composed of two floors with a ladder connecting themc) Equipped with a shower (this is insane)I would hestitate to even call it a shelter. It's a special place for sure.Those extra 11 miles were so cool - I passed through a field of cows that were right on the trail, and right off the trail, bizarrely, was a derelict, abandoned yellow school bus. I went inside, it was all rusted and the windows were all broken, but there was an old bed and stove inside, someone probably stayed there at one time. It was right out of Into the Wild.Even with mostly gentle terrain (I still went up and down, though, of course), 30 miles was a stretch. My feet felt it but my legs are actually in pretty good shape. Of course, after 5 minutes of sitting down at the shelter I got so stiff I could barely walk. I didn't order pizza but Turtle and Mike gave me some of theirs, it was so good.Before I forget again, I want to mention about a lady in Damascus who tracked me, Daniel and Thunder Thighs (brothers from Seattle) down and gave us homemade cookies because she felt bad that she didn't have the free ice cream cones we'd heard about. It was one of the nicest things ever.More Princess Bride trivia tonight, this time with Mike. I didn't even start it - he did. Can anyone answer this - the original Dread Pirate Roberts is retired and living like a king...where?P.S. 500 miles!