May 20

I walked in the woods today for 17 miles...lol
Yet again another overcast, humid and wet day...that has turned into a thunderstorm. Currently I am on Priest mountain at 4000ft in my tent listening to the rain bounce off. I arrived here early about 4:30 or so, wanted to continue on but the sound of thunder was discouraging. Fire wood is scarce on the mountain but i managed once again to make a nice fire even though its been raining off and on for nearly a week. Its really rewarding, especially when people look at you like your crazy for thinking you can make a fire when everything is soaked, then a little while later they are standing around it drying there socks.

Currently I'm either fighting sickness or my allergies are acting up idk, but I felt terrible yesterday so I only did like 6 miles and went to bed around 3 in the afternoon. Waynesbro VA is only two days away so hopefully I feel good enough to do decent miles to get there by Wednesday.  Mile 822.7 is where I am now...Harper's ferry seems so close, by the end of the week ill be walking through Shenandoah National Park.

Staying dry...

Carpenter

May 20

I walked in the woods today for 17 miles...lol
Yet again another overcast, humid and wet day...that has turned into a thunderstorm. Currently I am on Priest mountain at 4000ft in my tent listening to the rain bounce off. I arrived here early about 4:30 or so, wanted to continue on but the sound of thunder was discouraging. Fire wood is scarce on the mountain but i managed once again to make a nice fire even though its been raining off and on for nearly a week. Its really rewarding, especially when people look at you like your crazy for thinking you can make a fire when everything is soaked, then a little while later they are standing around it drying there socks.

Currently I'm either fighting sickness or my allergies are acting up idk, but I felt terrible yesterday so I only did like 6 miles and went to bed around 3 in the afternoon. Waynesbro VA is only two days away so hopefully I feel good enough to do decent miles to get there by Wednesday.  Mile 822.7 is where I am now...Harper's ferry seems so close, by the end of the week ill be walking through Shenandoah National Park.

Staying dry...

Carpenter

Blue Dog Art Cafe! May 19

These people are great, you can really feel like hiker love here.  On Sundays they are closed,  but not for us... The owner picked us up on the way back from our trip to food lion, let me pick up my package,  and while we were sitting out front organizing our food, the owner came back and invited us in for breakfast...on a closed day!

Thanks we love and appriciate your hospitality.

Carpenter

May 18 This is crazy good!

Since my last post, Sunshine and I made an unplanned stop in Glasgow VA. so she could get some food due to the fact she was living on peanut butter and protein powder. The original plan of an in and out stop changed immediately after we found out there was a FREE shelter and hot shower behind the restaurant.Later that evening we were still in Glasgow...we had decided to stay. Grim and whistle showed up after dark, we all sat. around the fire and had some trail talk over a few beers. Dinner consisted of hot dogs and chili... delicious!  Waking up friday with the intention of leaving...we didn't do anything lol sunshine and I spent most the day in the diner, drinking coffee, playing on our phones and watching TV. looks like an unplanned Zero day. The weather turned out to be terrible so it worked out great!

Now on to today, we woke up early, had a biscuit and coffee, before hitching back up the mountain to the trail. Hitching didn't take long a kayaker picked us up before we got out of town. We were back on trail by 10:15am. The trail was masked in fog and humidity was extremely high. 12:15 we had completed the 2416ft. climb in four miles. Not bad for the day after a zero. Continuing north we came into an area ideal for ginseng and sure enough we found some. 7:45 we came up to our home for the night (20.2 miles) or so we thought. After sitting at there talking to other hikers we decided to push on 2 miles to the road and try to hitch into Buena Vista VA at dark and it 10 miles away. (our original planned stop before Glasgow, I have a package at the cafe in town to pick up.) Quickly we had a snack and hit the trail flying... literally like 4 miles an hour, we made it to the in 22 min. up hill. The first car came seconds after we hit the road...Trail maintainers with the Natural Bridge trail club...the didn't even hesitate. On to the park in Buena Vista where I lay now...wow what an awesome day!

Early in the A.M we will hit town get my package and resupply then back up to the trail on the 10:30 shuttle. Going to try to push another 20+ day tomorrow.

800 miles! woot!
Carpenter

May 14 a Glorious yet tough day.

Ah today where to start? How about this morning...We left camp late again, but I needed to do repairs on my sleeping pad so sunshine drank her coffee while I did the repairs.  We set off to the first shelter where we met Couch, a chill dude from Colorado, we snacked and wrote in the book.

After 1st lunch we set off towards Jennings Creek, Sunshine found an awesome secret swimming hole that we jumped in, it was freezing but felt good at the same time. When our dip was done we headed up our first big climb of the day.  1000ft. climb up to a ridge line then back down to another shelter.  The Shelter was wicked cool, absolutely huge, I thought of it as a hiker fort! I would have loved to stay there but we had to do more miles.

Our next climb was a big one...almost 3000ft. in 5 miles. Of we were 2100ft. to a camp on the side of the mountain,  I made it up the 3 miles in an hour sunshine was close behind.  Couch made camp there we talked with him about hot dogs lol then moved on for the next 650ft. The plan for the night had become this...Skip the shelter and climb another 450ft. To black rock overlook to watch the sun set then find a camp. The out look was great a huge rock you had to climb up to the top of for an amazing view of the west and a perfect sunset. 

We are now tented about .3 from the overlook and the wind is howling.  There are also deer grazing around us its really neat, kinda frieky for a min. till we realized what it was lol.

Good night from the AT.

Carpenter

Sun! 80+ deg. with a nice breeze. May 15

Woke up on the ridge to a beautiful morning. Within the first mile we saw a huge owl it was beautiful.  Started the day with another 1000ft. climb up to an FFA tower. (One of the main towers for the eastern air traffic control centers) there was a posted sign that basically said if you try anything here we will end your life. Makes sense to me :-) From there we decended down to the "Guillotine" a huge boulder wedged between two other boulders. I've got to cut this blog short, bugs are eating me alive due to my cellphones light. We did 17.7 miles today it was really hot but I enjoyed it.

Carpenter.

May 13

Uneventful day today, sunshine and I Did 16.6 miles...we hiked around section hikers all day. First lunch we had at a beautiful little stream crossing,  were we played around looking for ginseng and caught crawfish just for sport. Chilly most of the day our breaks were fairly shorter than usual. The section of trail we are on crosses the Blue Ridge Parkway multiple time, and was rather easy, at one of the crossings we got trail magic that had boiled eggs! Thank goodness I love some boiled eggs. There isn't much water through here or camps other than shelters, so tonight we are stealth camping near the Parkway and a water source.  Our camp is on an old road bed so staking down the tent was a pain. Prior to finding this spot we went down in a damp holler that looked like a good camp till I noticed hog tracks in the mud, no thanks.  Time for bed now need some good sleep so hopefully we can get over 20 miles in tomarrow.

Carpenter