Date: 2018-09-01
From: Pine Swamp Branch Shelter

To: Sarver Hollow Shelter
Miles today: 24.9
Weather: overcast clouds

I'd arranged my bag in the shelter to catch the rising sun. Sure enough, what light can penetrate the trees shines through this morning. But I roll back over. I'm exhausted from the last few days heavy hiking, and from the late nights thanks to inept hostel dinner service, dorm room musings, and a blown tire. Mongo gave me a second trail name of "Midnight" in honor of my midnight rib dinner. I much prefer dozing off at hiker midnight.I finally rouse myself, cook oatmeal, and go about morning tasks. It's after 9 by the time I hit the trail. My goal is 25 miles to Sarver Hollow Shelter, which will get me close enough to make it to Four Pines Hostel tomorrow. Usually a solid goal would be a motivation, but today I keep looking for outs. It's humid already, which is like kryptonite sapping my super hiking powers. The trail turns decidedly more difficult with multiple long, steep ascents and descents. My pinky toes have both developed blisters and my left ankle starts hurting halfway through the day for no apparent reason. That, plus there's several mile+ sections of rocks, rocks, rocks. It all conspires to bring my hiking speed to a relative crawl just when I really need reliable speed.I pass a handful of hikers - a couple of southbound flip-floppers and a couple pairs of dayhikers. There's also a rare northbounder - a woman named Rock n' Roll sectioning to Harpers Ferry starting from Pearisburg where she had to end her thruhike in June due to an ankle injury caused by her dog pulling on the leash. At my lunch stop at a shelter I also meet a dad and two adolescent boys out for the weekend. The boys are having a blast throwing acorns and moss at each other, and splashing around in the creek.In late afternoon the trail descends through fields and deposits me at the Keffer Oak, a 300-year-old massive tree with enormous twisted limbs reaching in every direction. It would take three tall men to join hands around it's trunk. It sits in a distant corner of a forgotten field far from any road. But it gets thousands of visitors a year on foot.As the afternoon turns to evening the miles tick by too slowly. There's yet another steep, long uphill to the ridge with my destination Sarver Hollow Shelter. Why are they all so steep today? Minimal switchbacks force me to shorten my steps and push on my poles. As I walk along the ridge the sun sets behind the mountains giving me a gorgeous view and projecting horizontal rays of gold on the trees. I walk more quickly - I hate hiking after dark. It takes far longer than it should to finish the last mile and the light is dim. Then, at last, I see the sign for a shelter and my heart sinks! It's four-tenths of a mile off trail. Downhill. On the dark side of the ridge. Cursing my poor planning I charge down. I would have grabbed one of those attractive tent sites along the ridge if I'd known it would be such a long way down to the shelter. Halfway down it's so dim I lose the trail as it seems to split. One way is runoff but I can't be sure which! I throw down the pack, frustrated, grab my emergency headlamp with the puny light output and search for blazes. I can barely identify the dark blue blazes of the trail and can see just enough to avoid a broken ankle as rocks pop up and the trail switches back several times. Finally I see another sign, this one for water - another half mile! But the sign is here because the shelter is also right here. I can get by with the water I brought. Let me just get to bed. The shelter is large with a full deck under a large overhang with picnic table. It probably gets little use being so far off trail and having for practical purposes no water. Only a desperate hiker would walk a mile roundtrip down a mountain for water.I calm down and cook some potatoes and take stock of the day. At least I made my goal. Now I can rest my weary feet and settle my mind.