May 7-8 in Southern VA

May 7, 2005 | Day 41 | Miles: 0 | Total Miles: 459.5
End: Montgomery Homestead B&B, Damascus, VA
Danielle:
Sunny and warm
A zero day. Ahhhh. Started it off with a big family-style breakfast for which we were called to at 8am by a trumpet--yum. Then the post office, outfitter, laundry, lunch, phone calls, emails and catching up with everyone in town.
There are a lot of us here. Patch, Hopeful and Redwing came in a bit after us yesterday; Bravo, who we haven't seen since NOC way back when, came in too, after some high-mileage days to make up for 5 days off the trail vacationing with his wife; Clearwater, SWIFT (one of the best names yet -- Sh**, What'd I Forget Today-- and a great guy), Horizon, Wiggy, Free Radical, and on and on. Plus we're meeting new people here too. Amazing what an ebbing and flowing community this is. Makes and keeps it interesting. We met two men, Brian and Jim, this morning at breakfast who we haven't run into on the trail yet. Brian is a Bowdoin grad from 1966. What a coincidence! Great and very interesting guy. Lives up in Rangeley, ME. We chatted for a long time, and we'll definitely look him up when we get back to New England. Hopefully we'll see them out on the trail too.
This was a nice town stop but we're back at it tomorrow :-) Hopefully it will stay sunny for a bit!

Ryan:
sunny, warm
two great things happened on our day off:
1. i won a poker game. that brings our earnings to an even $20. oh yeah.
2. i no longer have any pants. it's all about the kilt. it's not a plaid kilt, it's more of a khaki skirt. ok, maybe it is really a skirt, but i'm hiking in it, and i am most excited.
(actually, i do have a pair of waterproofish shorts for when it's rainy and nasty, and i still have my rainpants to wear in camp, but i'm hoping to spend most days in the skirt...i mean kilt.)

May 8, 2005 | Day 42 | Miles: 15.8 | Total Miles: 475.3
End: Lost Mountain Shelter, Tent
Danielle:
Sunny and warm
Wow! Another nice day. Great day for hiking. We were completely filled up by Susie's breakfast of peach cobbler, french toast casserole, sausage quiche, grits, strawberries, bacon, juice and coffee. Yum! Might have been too much food--oh, and it could be the 5 days of food in our packs too!-- as we were going nice and slow the whole day. The trail paralleled a bike trail called the Virginia Creeper Trail, which was a rail trail and completely flat, while the AT meandered up and down over every bump. There were a lot of hikers today blue-blazing along the Creeper, which really was pretty as it went along the river. Taking the easy way out, no fair! To each his own, but still... Of course we saw some slackpackers too--basically doing a day hike along the trail. Someone shuttles you out to a spot and then you hike back into town with a day pack for another night in a hotel or hostel. Again, hike your own hike, but seriously folks! How is that the same as us trudging north with our full packs? Ah well...
We're headed up to Mt. Rogers tomorrow, the high point in Virginia. It's supposed to be another sunny day, so that should be nice :-)

Ryan:
sunny, warm, breezy
while walking today, i said "i can't wait to write my journal. it will be full of anger." so, here i go. first of all, we left town today with too much food...again. so, we were slow, and i was dragging a bit. now, i haven't mentioned blue blazing yet. the at is marked with white blazes, 2x6 inch white marks on trees, that let you know you're going in the right direction. simple. any trails off the at are marked with blue blazes. blue lead you to water and campsites, etc. however, some blue blaze trails are shortcuts or easier routes. so, if you take one of those trails to skip ahead, it's called, blue blazing. it's basically cheating. today, we walked next to the virginia creeper trail, which is flat, level, scenic, and generally quite nice. you can see it while walking along the steep rocky at. today you could skip about 14 miles of the at and take the creeper. some people did. dirty blue blazers. that only makes me slightly grouchy. even worse than blue blazing, is slackpacking. slackpacking is a crime against humanity. i hate chronic slackpackers. (if you're reading this and you've slackpacked...sorry, it's my journal.)slackpacking is only acceptable if weather, illness or another bizarre circumstance knocked you off the trail, and you have a deadline or tight schedule. basically, you hike a section of trail without your pack. from most towns you can get rides from local hostels or outfitters or whoever, they'll drop you off in the am and pick you up in the pm. and most times you go southbound. we saw some slackpackers today. they were skipping dancing singing...i hate them. as i'm grunting along under huge pack weight, feeling tired and grumpy, they saunter along talking about what a beautiful day it is. here, let me take my hiking pole and bash your knees with it, then throw my 45 lb pack on your head. that's about how i feel...little miss tra la la. slackpacking is weak. lower form of life. grumble grumble. one guy even said to us, "i really enjoy slackpacking." of course, you enjoy it...you're not carrying anything! nothing! that's like saying, "i really enjoy my 10:00 to noon work day." yeah, i'd like that, too. you might as well rent an rv and drive from atlanta to bangor. grumble grumble.