It’s been less than a week since my last report, but I have time for a quickish update. Last week I finished my 1,500th mile of the AT, and yesterday I finished the 399th of this year’s hike. I’ve had more than a week of nothing but sunshine and beautiful trail until this morning when I woke up to heavy rain (but I’m still sitting in a hostel as I write this, so I don’t care yet).
The terrain in this part of Virginia changes often. The trail will sometimes cut through pastures of grass which soaks the clothes (and nasty plants which cut the ankles), then moves steeply up to the top of ridges in permanently storm-strewn channels, now it will turn into nothing but stones and boulders for a stretch before rolling gently through sparse pine trees. Walking under pine trees is my favorite; they remind me of Vermont (which reminds me of Colorado), and the fallen pine needles make a nice soft carpet over the trail. The day after Daleville I reached a rocky climb up to a stone monolith called Dragon’s Tooth, which is sort of like a little one of Boulder’s flatirons but much more dragony. The variety of the trail reminds me often of the trail through Maine.
I’ve encountered three more bears while walking! (But no moose. That part of the trail also reminds me of Maine.) The first two were about ten miles out of Daleville. There was one sniffing around a tree near the trail. I whistled, tapped my trekking pole on a tree, clapped, and finally said, “Hey Bear!” To which it looked at me for a moment then went back to its sniffing. It knew I was there and displayed zero cares. So I stood and watched for a good five minutes (at least). Meanwhile the corner of my eye caught some movement up to my right. Way up near the top of the hill was a little bear scrambling up even higher. Finally I took a few steps forward, which seemed to encourage the bear to find some trees a little higher up to sniff, so I passed by.
A few miles later I came upon two hikers, Tusk and Cuffa Coppee (sp?), sitting by the trail with their packs off. They told me there was a bear in a tree over the trail a hundred yards ahead which wouldn’t get down when they yelled at it, so they decided to go back a little and see if it would come down with them out of sight. When I went past them, the bear was gone. I first met Tusk and Cuffa Coppee at the Howard Johnson motel in Daleville. They are a father and son team who are doing a long section from New York to the end of the trail in Georgia. I ended up at the same shelter as them several nights, and it can be nice to have known company at night. But they are big football fans and are trying to pace themselves so as to end up in towns on Sunday nights, so I’ll have to leave them behind for now.
I saw the other bear on Wednesday. I heard it first, and assumed it was a deer (the deer around here are skittish — basket cases, really — they run madly in any direction when they are startled), but instead of a leaping/galloping sound it was more of a lumbering sound. So I looked closely, and saw a furry, brown bear face looking back at me from the bushes. It was surely the largest of the bears I’ve seen so far, but still not as huge as I always imagine bears to be. I think my idea of a bear is fixed as that of a ferocious grizzly standing up and snarling.
I reached Pearisburg on Saturday morning, this time completely out of food and hungry. I planned my meals well from my last resupply, but my appetite had outpaced the number of snacks I brought, so I found myself snacking into the next day’s meals. But between some trail magics (a soda and oatmeal cookies in a cooler on the trail left for hikers, and another soda given to me by a section hiker) and an apple tree I lunched under on Friday, it worked out perfectly as I arrived in town in time for a breakfast at Dairy Queen. I stocked up on food, including plenty of snacks at the Food Lion grocery store in town.
I spent last night at the Wood Hole Hostel. I initially opted out of dinner (because $13), but there happened to be a meeting of the Roanoke Appalachian Trail Club overseers at the hostel last night (the volunteers who maintain the trail in this area) and there was so much homemade and homegrown food (they keep a large garden here and goats, pigs, and chickens — I woke up to roosters crowing and goats bleating this morning :) that they invited me to join anyway! Salad, chicken, rice, and a gigantic pan of enchilada. Much more than $13 worth. For breakfast there was French toast, eggs, and sausage from one of last year’s hogs. Before both meals everybody (about 20 of us) held hands in a circle and went around saying something we were thankful for. But the food was worth it.
I forgot to update on my health last time. The short day into Waynesboro was exactly what my shin needed, and I haven’t heard any complaints from it since. Other than that, my left calf was tight for a couple of days, but that has gotten better as well. I’m waiting for my knees to give up, but so far so good.
My next major resupply is in a town called Atkins in about five days. I may stay in the motel there, or I may keep on going until Damascus where I will definitely stay and from wither my next update will probably be sent.
I suspect almost every AT hiker with a trail journal has made some kind of Road to Damascus joke at this point, so I’ll spare you that.
Diode