We sleep in and relax. The motel offers a 'free buffet cooked breakfast' which turns out to be a disappointment.
The main shopping centre is about half a mile away - we meet Turtle and Paradise at the outfitter. Digby buys a new pair of shorts. I buy a skirt to walk in. My shorts are now falling down because of the lost weight.Turtle and Paradise have borrowed 'Superman's' Jeep, and driven over to Dalesville. Tonight they make plans to eat at the Home Place. We make the most of the Jeep opportunity and get Turtle to drive us back to the motel with all our groceries.
We stay in our room at the motel and drink cider and wine and eat avocado and fresh bread. More hikers arrive that we knw. We catch up with 'Worn Heel' and do our email and our washing. Where does the day go?
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Day 65 - 4th June - Catawba Mt Shelter - Dalesville - 19 miles
The highlight of the day is the climb to Macaffees Knob - a famous landmark in Virginia with spectacular views and overhanging rock ledges.
We stop at the Tinker Cliffs for lunch - great views and very exposed. And then a very long walk into town. As the afternoon drags on, the lightening storms start to build. We find ourselves walking traversing a very narrow ridge with the storms and bolts of lightening on both sides of us.
The closer we get to the town, the louder the traffic noise. We follow the trail right to the main freeway, and pop out into suburbia, with our motel only 100m away. We are exhausted and decide to stay two nights. We stay at the Howard Johnson Motel, which is full of hikers and eat at the Mexican restaurant over the road. The motel has a special wing for the 'hiker trash', and we have great fun catching up with other hikers we have met on the trail.
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| Macaffees Knob |
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| Alison with Salty looking over the vallesy of Virginia |
We stop at the Tinker Cliffs for lunch - great views and very exposed. And then a very long walk into town. As the afternoon drags on, the lightening storms start to build. We find ourselves walking traversing a very narrow ridge with the storms and bolts of lightening on both sides of us.
The closer we get to the town, the louder the traffic noise. We follow the trail right to the main freeway, and pop out into suburbia, with our motel only 100m away. We are exhausted and decide to stay two nights. We stay at the Howard Johnson Motel, which is full of hikers and eat at the Mexican restaurant over the road. The motel has a special wing for the 'hiker trash', and we have great fun catching up with other hikers we have met on the trail.
Day 64 - 3rd June - Trout Creek - Catawba - Catawba Mt Shelter - 15.8 miles
The climb up to the Dragon's Tooth stands out as one of the hardest climbs on the AT. The rocks are very uneven and the path is ascending, descending, ascending - soul destroying. And all I want to do is get there. The Dragon's Tooth is a spectacular monolith, and when we finally arrive, we find Grizzly's group spread over the whole area, having spent the night camped there.
There is a steep descent and we have a close shave - an accident which nearly terminates our whole trip. I fall off the cliff which is the path and luckily get wedged in a tree. Digby lunged to grab me as I lost my balance, missed and then fell himself with no tree to break his fall - I watched him roll down the cliff from my wedged position. Luckily we were both OK, just a bit shocked.
We are determined to reach the 'Home Place' a restaurant famous with hikers, for dinner tonight. We have a steep climb along a ridge followed by a traverse of a valley and a cow paddock, with a zigzag trail to the gap. It is a very hot day and we run out of water on top, and start to get stressed. We finally arrive at the road around 4.15pm. It is difficult to hitch so we decide to walk the one mile into the small village and have cars zinging past us. We arrive at the corner store absolutely dehydrated and both drink 2 litres of Mountain Dew (a soft drink with more calories than Coke) before we walk the last 400 metres to the Home Place.
We arrive at 5pm - we are sweaty and smelly and starving. There are loads of people in their best clothes for family celebrations. It is an old farmhouse and we are made to feel welcome. We eat as much as we can - seconds come for all courses at no extra charge - no wonder hikers love the place.
As we are getting ready to depart and head back up the mountain, a family offers to drive us. They are waiting for the rest of their group to arrive. We accept gratefully and it meansn that we are able to walk the 2 mile along the trail to the campsite as the sun is setting.
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| Alison stanidn in front of the Dragons Tooth |
There is a steep descent and we have a close shave - an accident which nearly terminates our whole trip. I fall off the cliff which is the path and luckily get wedged in a tree. Digby lunged to grab me as I lost my balance, missed and then fell himself with no tree to break his fall - I watched him roll down the cliff from my wedged position. Luckily we were both OK, just a bit shocked.
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| The path descends from the top of this cliff on the right. Alison wedges herself between the tree trunk (the one on the right) and the cliff when she falls. |
We arrive at 5pm - we are sweaty and smelly and starving. There are loads of people in their best clothes for family celebrations. It is an old farmhouse and we are made to feel welcome. We eat as much as we can - seconds come for all courses at no extra charge - no wonder hikers love the place.
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| Surrounded by food |
Day 63 - 2nd June - Sarver Hollow Shelter to Trout Creek - 14.9 miles
Hard walking along a rocky ridge followed by a long descent, and then another climb to a mountain range with a war memorial at the top to Audie Murphy, the most decorated US soldier in the WW2. It is quite spooky to be at the memorial. There is a 4WD road which has been put in to enable VIPs to reach the top. An old US flag is there, and lots of plastic flowers.
The descent is steep and we reach a small creek with a bridge and several 'holiday homes' which are rustic cabins, with nobody around.We decide to stop here to camp so that we can wash some clothes and have a bit of a wash and a paddle.
Ugly Tuna arrives and decides to join us. As he crosses the bridge one of the hikers - a young girl with red hair who is waiting for her friends to arrive - has a dog - who decides to attack Ugly Tuna on the bridge. His voice echoes out - 'Madam, control your dog! Control your dog!' Madam immediately takes the necessary steps to control her dog and Ugly Tuna crosses in safety. His words ring in our ears and a few days later I find myself repeating the same words, different scenario.
Unfortunately her friends - a group of young hikers, including Grizzly who we had met a week ago decide to make this their base to regroup, and cook dinner and we have their unwelcome noisy present until about 9pm when they finally decide to depart to hike at night and climb the Dragon's Tooth.
The descent is steep and we reach a small creek with a bridge and several 'holiday homes' which are rustic cabins, with nobody around.We decide to stop here to camp so that we can wash some clothes and have a bit of a wash and a paddle.
Ugly Tuna arrives and decides to join us. As he crosses the bridge one of the hikers - a young girl with red hair who is waiting for her friends to arrive - has a dog - who decides to attack Ugly Tuna on the bridge. His voice echoes out - 'Madam, control your dog! Control your dog!' Madam immediately takes the necessary steps to control her dog and Ugly Tuna crosses in safety. His words ring in our ears and a few days later I find myself repeating the same words, different scenario.
Unfortunately her friends - a group of young hikers, including Grizzly who we had met a week ago decide to make this their base to regroup, and cook dinner and we have their unwelcome noisy present until about 9pm when they finally decide to depart to hike at night and climb the Dragon's Tooth.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Day 62 - 1st June - Windrock campsite to Sarver Hollow Shelter - 15.9 miles
This is one of those horrific days on the AT where you climb huge mountains and then descend for no pointless reason and then climb again. In AT terminology it is called a PUD - pointless up and downs. This is a PUD to remember. We make two ascents of 1700' and 1500' [total climbing over 3000'] and two descents of 2000' and 1800' [total descents over 3800'].
We have been following Tater Chip in the shelter registers- he is now walking alone a few days ahead of us, since Stickbuilt dropped out, and he is walking 20+ miles a day. We wonder how long he can do this for? We hike up to a road and meet Shakin again and yes - we get another soda from his car, which is very welcome.
One of the very special memories of the trail is finding an abandoned farm house from the 1930s which is still standing, at a lean, just off the trail. We detour down to have a look and think about the history of the farm that would have once been in this area.
Before the final ridge, we come to an old oak tree - 300 years old and 18' in circumference. It is called the Keffer Oak. It helps us put things into perspective. Most of the forest we are hiking through is less than 80 years old, having been planted in the 1930s.
We follow along a ridge which is really spooky - there are igloos of rocks piled up everywhere.It has to be man-made - and we wonder about the history of the area. We know that people were evicted from this area in the 1930s, and we decide that the rock piles are to create more 'growing space' in between the piles for farmers living at subsistence level.
We decide not to descend to the shelter and clear a campsite on the ridge. Digby leaves his pack and descends half a mile in stone steps to the shelter to get water for us at an old well and house site.
We have been following Tater Chip in the shelter registers- he is now walking alone a few days ahead of us, since Stickbuilt dropped out, and he is walking 20+ miles a day. We wonder how long he can do this for? We hike up to a road and meet Shakin again and yes - we get another soda from his car, which is very welcome.
One of the very special memories of the trail is finding an abandoned farm house from the 1930s which is still standing, at a lean, just off the trail. We detour down to have a look and think about the history of the farm that would have once been in this area.
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| The old farm house - it is on a tilt, the floorboards are rotten but it surely gives a feeling for who lived and farmed here. |
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| Alison standing with 300 years of history. |
We follow along a ridge which is really spooky - there are igloos of rocks piled up everywhere.It has to be man-made - and we wonder about the history of the area. We know that people were evicted from this area in the 1930s, and we decide that the rock piles are to create more 'growing space' in between the piles for farmers living at subsistence level.
We decide not to descend to the shelter and clear a campsite on the ridge. Digby leaves his pack and descends half a mile in stone steps to the shelter to get water for us at an old well and house site.
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