Date: 2008-07-09
From: Trout Creek

To: Rte. 311
Miles today: 13.0

July 9 and 10The fantasy this trip was walking from Trout Creek to Rte. 220, seventeen miles, but I took the two days and an early end to the second day to make the thirteen miles to Rte. 311. Lee and I arrived by plane to Roanoke and made our way to the Hotel Roanoke, but only after a heroic attempt to locate denatured alcohol. We found this at Lowe¢s, in a large quantity. The next morning, the walk began with a drive out to find Trout Creek, approaching by Rte. 621, and some form of ignition. Eventually, Lee left me at the footbridge and turned south on Rte 620 after I had begun to climb Cove Mountain. All the weather reports were scary and the woods were already wet, but this was my one chance in two years and I was going to take it. I got off at 8:00; by 10:00 I was at the first outcrop overlook and by 11:30 I was lunching at the base of the Dragon¢s Tooth, which, owing to the weather and the fact that it was Wednesday, I had all to myself. I did not try to climb the Dragon¢s Tooth. I tended to my feet, which had no hotspots, and ate my gorp and one of those Pemmican-brand logan breads which I had packed for breakfasts and lunches for this overnight trip. I was drinking water and becoming aware that water was going to be an issue. Things got hairy as soon as I began to descend from Dragon¢s Tooth. I am happy the AT is routed to Dragon¢s Tooth, but this habit of routing for points of interest can pose challenges (things being interesting because they are different, often because they are rocky and dangerous). So I found myself rock-climbing in reverse, which was slow going. But, as always happens, the trail eased and I was soon sitting on Overlook Rock airing my feet, reading my map, and contemplating a photograph of the Dragon¢s Tooth vicinity from below. But the weather systems were fast moving and I was spooked off the rock by dark clouds speeding over Cove Mountain from the northwest. I passed three young campers on the trail and descended to Rte. 624. Arriving at Rte. 624 posed an interesting problem. I was out of water but disliked the slow-flowing trickle which ran along the road. I could walk east or west and find civilization. Meanwhile, I had arrived nursing the same kind of pain that put me off the walk two years before. I realized this time that it was not a knee injury so much as a cramp. This year I resolved to push on. I considered, after all, that the pain in 2006 had occurred after four days of walking, not just one morning, and that I was not going to be so feeble and I was going to learn more about this pain and what my knees could really do. I was soon up and over a hill and into a wide and reasonably flat wooded area littered with pasture patties. The pasture and the cows were down at the creek, a Catawba Creek tributary. It was 3:00 p.m. when I arrived at the stream and, watching the cows stand in the stream some twenty yards downstream, I got to work with the ceramic filter, notoriously hard to work, but effective. It was not so hard this time because it was clean. Anyway, I soon had about 3 liters of water which were also given the Aqua Mira treatment. Filtered and treated, this water would not make me sick, I hoped.Here began one of those Rube Goldberg sequences: deciding to make a very early dinner, because I was unsure of weather to come (and it had been reasonably fair to this point), I set up the alcohol stove. I poured half of the contents of my 2 oz bottle into the stove and lit it and placed a pot of water on. I needed 4 oz and in retrospect this was one of the basics I needed to work on: how much fuel is required? So the 2 oz of alcohol was bringing the water to a simmer when a storm came up and I rushed to stash my pack contents, which were strewn everywhere, back into the pack. The wind and rain were over quickly. So back to the stove, I could not see a flame and surmised that the storm wind had blown it out. I decided to add the other 2 ozs. This was disasterous to a new stuff sack, to some plastic bags, to the burning plastic fuel bottle which assumed another shape, and to any hope of my eating a cooked dinner on this trip. So I put the pack together and headed off. As I did the storm began in earnest and it was a wet walk up to the pastures which one crosses before ascending Catawba Mountain from the southwest. These were fast-moving storms nowhere near as severe as the storms in Roanoke proper, I learned, and, though I was sometimes dashing across open fields to get to the protective tree line, they were no great obstacle. In fact, I find walking in the rain exhilarating. What was left was a reasonable ridge walk of Catawba Mountain, as far as Rte. 311. For a moment I had thought of turning back up into the flat wooded area to camp, but having chosen to push on, I was now looking for a suitable place to pitch my tarp. Of course, this search lasted three hours, during which I arrived within a mile of Rte. 311 thoroughly exhausted. Exhausting myself is normal for me. I was expecting a storm and looking for a gap or depression where I would be reasonably protected from lightning, wind, and run off. Where run off was concerned, I began to understand the appeal of a hammock. I found a mediocre site and was set up by 6:30. Having nothing to cook with, I ate my third logan bread. I decided to try to sleep. The next four or five hours were spent fighting insects. The mosquito netting rig I usually carry was at home and so I had reduced my pack weight to nineteen pounds. This was a wonderful thing and thoroughly eliminated the pain I usually get on the inside of the left scapula. It made scrambling down the mountain from Dragon¢s Tooth possible. As it turned out I was mainly troubled by carpenter ants, and when one bit me in the back I had had enough. I turned on the light to see what the problem was. The problem was that I was sleeping on top of a nest of carpenter ants, and about two hundred were trying to re-enter the nest. Although there had been heavy rains during these hours, the rain had stopped by 11:00 and so I packed up and moved about fifty yards to a new site, one with more slope, but no carpenter ants (except the ones I brought with me from the other place). Practicing high-impact camping techniques, I kicked all the leaf matter aside before bedding down. I didn¢t want to discover any new nests of any sort. Another problem in basic skills was the state of my tarp¢s guylines, which in certain cases I had to cut by headlamp light to solve tangling problems. It is just that I don¢t get to do this enough.I slept until 8:00 a.m., very rare for me, and found myself in fine weather. I took my time packing up and ate my last logan bread on top of the ridge. The view was lousy, but the environment was fine. I made an attempt to phone Lee from a magnificent overlook some distance on. No dice with a phone conversation, but I was soon exchanging text messages and I asked Lee to pick me up at the AT parking lot. She was driving out to buy sheets, but came and got me, dropped me at the hotel, and then went on her way. I cleaned up, slept, and she was back soon and we spent the rest of the day in the square in Roanoke, spending too much at the flax shop, and at the Orvis shop, and at Walkabout Outfitters, where we bought hiking hats for Lee and for my mother. We had a nice dinner in the hotel (despite the ¢American portions¢) and that was that.