Note: For anyone who reads French or can use Google Translate, check out Gwen’s blog at the link below!

5/29 Mile 697.9 – Pickle Branch Shelter

Everyone knows they’ll get rained on on the AT. You carry rain gear for a reason. What starts to be a problem is when the rain is consistent one day after another and you start to feel like you’re never going to be dry again. This was day two of rain, and it was heavier and more consistent. Not all day, though, which was nice. The morning was a bit of a slog. Wet shoes, wet shorts. There was a very cool rocky ridgewalk that was some very fun hiking (although it would’ve been even better if we could see out from the ridge). We stopped for a nice lunch under cover of a shelter, and it let up for a while after that, which was fortunate. Second real water crossing of the AT today! We were worried the water would be too high due to the rain, but it was easily doable. The rain came back with a vengeance in the later afternoon, and I had some shockingly bad chafing that started in the last couple miles of the day.

I don’t typically stay in shelters; I usually prefer the privacy of my tent at the end of a long day. Today was an exception. It was wet and that didn’t seem like it would change overnight, the tent spots near this shelter sucked, and the shelter was already populated with friends of mine (Cookie, Snore, Gwen, Shooter, and a new friend named Tuna Shorts). We had a lovely evening in the shelter doing our best to get dry. We ended our day together, with a lovely little group conversation. Solidarity is nice on harder days.

Addendum: today, I taught Gwen about sassafras and he really appreciated it. For those who also don’t know, it has three distinct types of leaf on every plant: an oval, a mitten shape, and a shape with three rounded prongs. It has a very good, very distinctive smell, and the stems taste good if you chew them. Thanks, Dad, for teaching me that in our yard when I was a little kid!

5/30 Mile 712.5 – Catawba Shelter

Glad I stayed in this shelter. Nice slow rainy morning, awakening with friends. We all took off around the same time, mozying toward the 700 mile mark and toward Dragon’s Tooth, an iconic rock pinnacle that is the first piece of what’s known as the “Virginia Triple Crown.”

After coming down from Dragon’s Tooth, we were all looking forward to a mini-resupply at a gas station/grocery store just off the trail in Catawba. That was our motivation for the couple miles after Dragon’s Tooth. So glad the rain held off, it would’ve made the climb down super treacherous. We made it there and restocked; they had a really good kitchen there as well. The burgers were solid!  Of course, minutes after moving on, the rain started again. Figures. We had a couple stints of rain throughout this afternoon. The first wasn’t so bad, it brightened up for some lovely meadow-hiking; during the second, it poured for a while, then lightened up as I approached the shelter (we had split up for some solo hiking by this point). For some reason, I suddenly encountered some of the most intense chafing of my life.

Was once again a nice little group of friends at the shelter (similar group to the previous day, with the addition of Chuckles). Over dinner (with the addition of a trail beer each that we had packed out from the Catawba Grocery), we concocted a plan for a sunrise hike of McAfee Knob, the second feature of the VA Triple Crown.

When I went to bed, my feet looked awful. After being wet all day, the bottoms become white and look like they’re separating from the rest (they’re not, actually). Luckily, I happened to wake up to pee around 2AM. My feet had dried fully and looked much better, just a bit shiny red on bottom. I slathered them in Aquaphor and went back to sleep, which helped a ton. 

5/31 Mile 731 – Beech Hill Hostel

Set an alarm for maybe the third time on trail? Shooter was the first to take off, then Gwen and Chuckles, then myself around 5:30, then Cookie and Snore. It was some once again amazingly peaceful doing morning hiking in the dark. Our arrival at the Knob was initially a bit disappointing; it was totally fogged in. Resigned to our fate, we made breakfast and coffee up there, which was a good choice. The fog burned off, and we got a great view of the valley below and sunbeams through what fog remained. It was mystical-looking and gorgeous, and I was glad to watch it happen over breakfast with friends.

Eventually we moved on from the knob in groups of 1-2 after a nice breakfast and photo sesh; because we had gotten there so early, it was still only 7AM or so, and we had already done 2 miles. The fog eventually finished burning off. It became a positively hot day.

We started getting excited as we approached Daleville. Shooter, Gwen, and I had booked bunks at Beech Hill Hostel. It ended up being a lovely little hostel where we got our own mini bunkhouse and a nice space to get clean and dry everything out after the days of rain. At dinnertime (and after showering and changing clothes, thankfully) Beth drove us to town and dropped us off at Three Little Pigs, where we had excellent barbecue (along with house made pork rinds, fried pickles, and a free order of hush puppies for the table when Gwen asked what hush puppies were), then walked over to Kroger to resupply before being picked up. Upon our return, we had a chill evening of reorganization and chatting, first at the picnic table, then in our little lamplit bunkhouse before settling in to journal and sleep.