9th – 15th June
This week the heat and humidity levels have really increased. That means the insect numbers have too, so it’s all combined to make hiking through it much more of a challenge. Imagine tiny flies constantly flying along in front of your eyes, mosquitoes flying along next to your ears and every now and again, a sudden hot and humid gust of air hitting you, like when someone pours water on a sauna stove. Combined with the occasional pine smell, if you closed your eyes you could imagine you were actually in one, but not when you first get in at the beginning and it all feels lovely, at the end when you can’t wait to get out! You can of course wear a head net for the bugs, and we do, but that just makes you hotter and gives the bugs something to land on. The combination of heat, bugs and climbs can really wear down your resolve.
The week started with the hike up to Dragon’s Tooth; one of Virgina’s triple crown. It was a cool landmark but the hike to and from it was borderline rock climbing, with, as Bill Bryon says, a wardrobe on your back. It’s not great for balance, and it was super slow-going. We did start late, but by 5pm we’d only done 7/8 miles. We were in a camping restriction zone, so we had to make the call of stopping at that point or hiking another 7 miles. We decided to go for it, but we’d need to get a move on if we were going to be able to set up camp before nightfall. We did make it, but it was a tough day. We hit the 700-mile mark though, and had some great interactions with strangers. One person asked us how far we were going, and when I said “Maine”, they were gob smacked. I don’t think they’d heard of the AT. Another guy punched the air in celebration when we said we’d walked 700 miles. He shook his head and muttered “incredible” to himself as he walked away. This is our life at the moment; our normal, but it’s good to be reminded that what we’re doing is anything from it.
We had the shelter to ourselves that night, which was odd. There were a lot of noises in the night that we were hoping were just deer, and there were lots of day-hikers passing by early on Tuesday morning. One family stopped in their tracks when they saw us. I said hello but got no response, I felt like an exhibit at a zoo: “thru hikers in their natural environment”. In that same moment, Roo emerged from the tent looking very sleepy and hairy, yawning and stretching. I guess we are a bit wild now! Our shelter also had an award-winning privy, and to be fair it was a nice one. As I was using it, I noticed the biggest spider I had ever seen (outside of the jungle and the zoo). Was it a brown recluse? Was I about to be bitten by America’s second most poisonous spider whilst on the toilet? I got out of there as fast as I could! It was a great shelter though, built in honour of an AT trail volunteer, with a moving dedication. It hoped that his legacy would be for us to notice the rays of the morning sun on the spider’s webs in the forest. I thought it was beautiful, and promised to make an effort to notice more of the tiny incredible details of the forest as we hiked on. That day we hit the other 2 landmarks of Virginia’s triple crown: McAfee Knob and Tinker Cliffs. They were both incredible! I did dangle my feet over McAfee Knob (as is tradition) but felt a little queasy as I made the mistake of looking forward into the abyss below me. We had the tough choice of 9 or 19 miles that day but decided to go for the big one, as it had the promise of a hotel at the end of it. It was so odd to walk out of the forest to a busy road crossing full of gas stations and motels. The feeling of sinking into the big bed after a very long hot day was so amazing! I don’t think a bed has ever felt so good. We also actually caught up to Axel (as opposed to crossing his path while we hiked southbound) so we swapped news over a beer and Mexican food sat on the concrete steps of the car park of our hotel.
The next morning was a leisurely one; with ice baths, phone calls home, and coffee. We shopped too, doing our usual resupply, and stopped at the outfitter for some clothes that would better protect us from the sun (as the heat is fast becoming the biggest challenge weather-wise). We hiked on in 29C (85F) and there was a fair amount of climbing, so we were pretty late getting to the shelter. It helped morale to know that we’d catch up with Nick and Lynn that evening. It was great to see them, and good to know that we’d made a nice dent in the time we’d lost from noro too.
We didn’t have the best night’s sleep with the heat and a lot of noises in the night. Others in the camp thought a bear might have been in, but everyone was safe, with food containers intact, so that’s the main thing. The advantage to a bad night’s sleep is setting off earlier, which was helpful in the heat. The hike that day wasn’t too bad, but the heat made it pretty difficult. Thankfully we’d chosen a spot to camp that night where we could have a dip in a river. There were quite a few other hikers there partying, and they were kind enough to pass around beers that we enjoyed in the river. The only downside to our nice camp spot was the bugs; we saw a fair number of ticks and I had to pull one out of my foot. I dropped it in the tent before I could kill it, so now I don’t know where it might turn up again! We’re hoping that it’s not how things will be now.
Friday was an incredibly tough day. We’d mentally braced ourselves for a lot of climbing, but managed to get the first big ones out of the way fairly swiftly and painlessly. I was trying not to get ahead of myself that it wasn’t going to be too bad after all, and rightly so. By our mid-afternoon break we hadn’t even made it 9 miles. It was hot, steep and buggy. Again, we had the annoying choice of 9 miles or 14, with no stopping points in between. I felt just about okay at the 9-mile point, so we decided to hike on. One mile later was a very different story. By now, my body had decided to add period cramps to the equation, and when your torso is synched into a huge backpack, it’s pretty hard to take. Even the emergency chocolate bar didn’t save me this time. We stopped at an absolutely beautiful overlook, and I bawled my eyes out because instead of enjoying the incredible view I could only think about how hard things were. I hate it when I can’t appreciate things, especially when I know how lucky we are to be out here. We did eventually make it to the shelter and Lynn said the day had kicked her arse too. It turned out that we’d ascended more than 5000ft!
We woke up with a wet bottom (of our tent) the next day after some unbelievably heavy rain in the night. We’d booked into a hostel that we’d heard about along the trail (always a good sign), so we were keen to get going to make the most of it. As I set off and said goodbye to Lynn, she told me that I smelled like a day-hiker. In any other context, being told you smell like any kind of hiker would probably be in insult, but this was actually a pretty high compliment; it meant I smelled clean! After four days in the woods in high temperatures, I was pretty pleased with that! That day, we had 15 miles to do, and we were finally going to climb High Cock Knob. Roo had been looking forward to this for weeks as it’s probably the most outrageously named mountain on the trail. After a lot of exertion and anticipation, we got sweaty and breathless, and when we reached the summit, Roo said “is that it? Now I know how you ladies must feel sometimes!” What a letdown, we didn’t even get a view. We trudged on, feeling hard done by. As we got closer to the road crossing where we’d get picked up, we could see a huge river, so full from the heavy rains last night. We got to the road and our shuttle turned up: a beaten-up old van. We all piled in just as a huge rainstorm started. The guy had a load up, and with the heavy rains and winding mountain roads I thought to myself that it could be a pretty dangerous ride as I looked around to see missing headrests and steamed up windows. The windscreen was steamed up too and the guy just kept on driving, hunching further and further over to try to see the road. Roo asked him if he’d like him to clear the screen for him and the guy didn’t seem to know this was an option! As we pulled up to the hostel, it just looked like a distinctly average house, and we waited to find out what all the fuss was about. We had reserved the only private room in the place, and it turned out to be an actual tool shed. We’d paid $100 to sleep in with dusty tools, rotten floorboards, old pesticides, broken windows and hundreds of old pieces of wood. They had called it a shed online, but we foolishly assumed it would be done in a cutesy characterful way judging from the price. When will we learn?! The bed, at least, was good and clean (apart from all the crud that had fallen from the ceiling) and it was wonderful to see lots of familiar faces that we hadn’t seen for weeks (Ryan, Romeo, Sunset, and Sniper). We went to a great restaurant (the only one in town), that appeared to segregate hikers. I wanted to look around to see if our friends were there already, but the waiter did not want me to do that. I had to go to sit in the hiker section. The food was fantastic though and we thoroughly filled our boots as we always try to in town.
We were slackpacking again on Sunday with Ryan and Romeo, and were attempting our biggest day yet: 22 miles. It was an amazing feeling to set off without the extra weight on our backs, and liberating to know that I could hike faster and move more freely than normal. Bending down to look at something, or take a photo wasn’t going to result in a huge effort and groans of pain! We had another 5000ft of elevation gain that day but we’d stuffed our day pack with exciting treats that were usually too fresh to carry. We had crotch burritos for lunch. So named because early on Cyclone had bumped into a hiker who had offered him a burrito from his bum bag (or fanny pack for you Americans). He had bought frozen burritos and slowly defrosted them with his body heat in time for lunch. Now, if you mention a crotch burrito to Cyclone, he gets a dreamy far off look in his eyes. We think of you often Cyclone, and hope you’re doing okay. Bluff mountain, the most difficult part of the day was over early, and after the big climb we were rewarded with a view of nothing but thick white cloud. However, I was pleasantly surprised that the big mileage and elevation was pretty manageable without our packs. It made me think that we have to work on the weight of our bags. I think Ryan and Romeo thought the same too. Romeo was researching lighter tents as we waited for our shuttle driver. Was it worth ordering a $650 tent to save 1lb? We said goodbye to them when our lift turned up. Roo and I were headed to Lexington for a zero. We’d booked a beautiful old hotel for less money than the knackered old shed at the bottom of the garden. We’d got soaked that day but hadn’t bothered with raincoats as it was so hot, so as we walked into our lovely hotel with chandeliers and marble floors, I became very aware that we were wet, covered in mud and no doubt pretty smelly. Lexington looked like a very nice town with a fair amount of money so I was a little embarrassed at the state of us! It wasn’t like the usual trail towns we were used to. That day we had hit 800 miles, and after the long day our bodies felt much better than usual. We’ve got to ditch some weight from our packs!
So It’s been a tough but good week out here. We’ve walked about 110 miles and crossed the 700 and 800 mile marks. We saw plenty of wildlife; we played peek-a-boo with a deer, saw our first racoon (so cute), and huge leather beetles, as well as the usual mass of wildflowers, and weird and wonderful fungi that never cease to amaze me.
You may notice we’ve been shelling out for more luxuries recently: slackpacking and accommodation. It’s not that we have so much money that we don’t have to think about it, it’s that this is equally the hardest and most amazing thing we’ve ever done. There are days when I love it and days when I hate it, and we’ve talked about it a lot. We want to do all we can to enjoy the experience and look back knowing that we made the most of this incredible opportunity as much as we could. We can always make more money, but you can’t make more time.
Lessons learned on the trail this week/tips for future thru hikers
- Crotch burritos! Frozen burritos are pretty widely available and great for protein. They don’t have to be defrosted with crotch heat, they’re just as tasty after sitting in your back pack!
- Always keep your mind on the weight of the pack. Ditch anything you can. All the little changes add up.
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