Pretty Little Pond along the trail
Day 44
Starting mile 605.6
It poured down rain last night, but luckily when I woke up the rain had stopped. I’ve been lucky and have been able to set up and take down camp without rain. I got moving by 7 am because I wanted to do a big day today. I had about 22.5 miles to the Doc’s Knob Shelter where I was hoping to stay tonight. The first 13 miles were going to be easy after an initial climb.
I was moving right along making over 2.5 miles an hour even with the climbing. About 11 miles in I was going to cross a stream, and I thought I’d eat my lunch there, but when I got there, I figured I’d push on to the shelter a couple of miles away. It was basically a flat, two miles and it was only 11 am. About 0.2 miles before the shelter there is a pond. I make my way around the pond, and I ran into “Irish” and “Rerun”. I haven’t seen these two guys in five or six weeks. It was great running into them. We had lunch together before they took off, up the trail. They were staying at the next hostel. Hopefully I’ll see them down the trail.
I enjoyed a nice long lunch because I only have about nine miles to go for the day. By the time I finish eating and refill my water it is almost 1 pm. Of course, leaving the shelter means I’ve got a long climb ahead of me. Two thirds of my remaining elevation gain is in the next two miles. The only thing I can do is start walking so that is what I did. It wasn’t so bad and when I got to the top I had some nice views.
Once I was at the top, I had a few more ups and downs and I got to the shelter. I looked around and the whole shelter was in a patch of rhododendrons, unfortunately this means I can’t really hang my hammock. I decided to make dinner and refill all my water. After eating I head on down the trail to find somewhere else to spend the night. After another half mile I found a nice spot to hang.
I ended up doing 23 miles with about 4,400 feet of elevation gain. I’m set up for an eight-mile day into Pearisburg tomorrow.
Ending mile 628.6