Date: 2008-04-11
From: Unnamed Campsite VA

To: Niday Shelter VA 
Miles today: 21.9
Weather: broken clouds

Day 54 ¢ Friday April 11 ¢ Niday Shelter VA ¢ Miles Today: 21.9 Total Miles: 674.2Wow, what a day. Lots of stories to tell.We saw not a soul today; however, hiking the 6 miles to our shelter, we had a hunter firing shots fairly close to us! Brakeman started whistling to let him know that we were in the area. That clued Grasshopper to start using the whistle on her backpack. After about 10 short bursts of our various whistles, the shots stopped. The hunter fired 6 or 8 shots, probably down in the valley and not in our direction, but even still it was a bit unsettling. We were glad that he either wrapped up his business or heard our whistles and quit shooting. We're at Niday Shelter tonight, which is at mile marker 674.2. We did 21.9 miles today, slightly by accident. We hiked nearly 16 miles to Sarver Hollow Shelter trial junction, arriving before 4:00. The shelter is .4 off the trail, which we weren't too thrilled about. Throughout the day, we talked about the possibility of going further if we got there at a decent hour. We really debated quite a while whether to go 5.3 more miles to the next camp site (yawn - excuse me; it's way past my hiker midnight bedtime) and wouldn't you know within 5 minutes of deciding to push on, we were doing the horribly slow cliff walking. We had 5+ miles to go and we were pushing the time window on the daylight hours and here we were doing slow cliff walking with sheer drop-offs on one side. Luckily, it was not horribly tough on our feet; it just slowed us down a bit, but we were most pleased to find that we did 6 miles to the shelter, walking right by our intended campsite, in under 3 hours including a break to filter and freshen up in a stream before we got here! We were so glad that we pushed on to this shelter, as with us tonight are Josh and Amanda! They are one of the very first thru-hikers we met early in North Carolina and we lost track of them in the Smokies when we got off the trail with the flu bug. It was great having dinner with them at the picnic table at the shelter and catching up on stories. We were able to tell them that the animal they heard one night was a mountain lion. Josh remarked that he had to clean up his sleeping bag after hearing the animal screeching. But now that he knows it was a mountain lion, I¢m not so sure he will have any better of a night sleeping!They're both having foot problems - numbness in the feet which sounds a little bit like the planter fasciitis. Tomorrow they hike about one mile, where they will be met by a family member and whisked away to a cabin for 5 days on Smith Mountain Lake, which is right outside Roanoke. Grasshopper visited Smith Mountain Lake while on business in Roanoke. So we'll be 5 days ahead of them, but hopefully with our slower pace and our break with Mr. & Mrs. Grasshopper in Pennsylvania, we¢ll once again link up with them. They've not been overly impressed with the shelter company they've had on the hike so far - some really odd characters who seem to share their deepest, darkest secrets with them when they have met them just 6 minutes prior and Mr. Know-it-alls, as well as just plain ol¢ inconsiderate people. Their shelter experience with thru-hikers has not been too positive and they had remarked how they wished they were back with us. They're a great young couple and we have enjoyed meeting them and hopefully we'll run into them again. One hiker they talked to had basically stopped eating because her body odor was turning her off to the point where she could not eat! She actually had a bottle of perfumed Body Works spray that she sprayed herself to help with the issue, which Josh thought it was absolutely hilarious because she was basically saying, "Here bear, come and get me." Hopefully the hiker gets her appetite back soon!!We asked Josh and Amanda if they were the Trail Angels who left the 2 bite-size chocolates beside the cut tree for us a couple days ago. It was not them, but they claimed that they moved some rocks out of the way for us to make our day a bit easier. In reality, Josh finally admitted it wasn't to make our day easier, it was because the rocks tripped him and he picked them up and threw them because he was mad.Josh now has a trail name, Little Debbie, as apparently he really likes Little Debbie snacks. The chocolate Rice Krispie Trail Magic treat we had yesterday was a Little Debbie product, so we were lucky that Josh saved us one!   Turns out that the Trail Angel was Mike, the day hiker in flip-flops, who we met the other day near Dismal Creek Falls Trail. He's a previous thru-hiker and little did we know that he snuck up another road and left Trail Magic. Very nice of him.Josh and Amanda said that when we got off the trail in Damascus to meet our Trail Angles Harry and Marian, that we missed some purely awful weather that was the lowest point of their trip! Freezing rain made their rain jackets a sheet of ice. They looked like they were wrapped in cellophane. They said they have never been so cold and if they could have been they would have asked to be rescued off the mountain via a helicopter! So boy are we glad that we were kidnapped for those days for some heated cabin time! The wild life today was quite good. We saw a few more deer in the morning. Josh and Amanda remarked that they had been seeing deer throughout the day. We went through another cow pasture, but this time there were no Betsy Sues or Hot Lips or Martha Janes there. We had the pasture all to ourselves which Brakeman surely enjoyed. Upon exiting the cow pasture, we walked through some private land where a few miniature donkeys were fenced. Amanda apparently has a fascination with miniature donkeys, so she was just tickled pink to see them. We also saw the Keffer Oak tree - a 300-year-old oak tree right on the AT. Apparently, it's the largest oak on the AT in the south measuring 18¢ 3¢ around. The Dover Oak along the AT in New York is slightly larger. Despite the weather report from many people yesterday that today was to be in the 60s, it was our hottest day yet. It was in the mid 80s   Due to our visitation with Josh and Amanda and our late arrival at camp, it's already 9:30. We're in our tent; we just had a sprinkle for about 30 seconds, which has cooled things down all the way to about 72. I don¢t think we'll need our 5-degree bags tonight! With our 6 extra miles today, we are better positioned for various options into Daleville. The next 2 days we'll just do 16-17 mile days. Tomorrow may be a bit of a challenge as there is no sign of water between mile 10 and mile 16-17, nor a sign for camping. Our plan will be to do our big meal at lunchtime, stock up on water and then walk for at least 3 hours and see what we can find. If we see any water on the way, we'll stock up again and that way we'll position ourselves for Daleville. If we want to do a motel, we can get there at a decent hour. If we don't want to do a motel, we can get into town, do our Kroger shopping and get out.We're not overly tired; the trails were smooth today. We had a couple good inclines/declines but the rocks were not a killer, so although it was a long 21-mile day and it's 9:30 at night, we're feeling good. Now if we could only get it to drop about 20 degrees, we¢d be doing even better. But who knows, they're saying it's supposed to be in the 40s tomorrow. We will see. Good night from humid and rocky, but not today, Virginia.