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  jl0193a 10:55 pm on July 22, 2010 Permalink | Reply  

  CT/MA 

  Belated update the second:

  After recovering from our Trail Bombs, Crusher and I crushed on to Kent, CT. We met up with Jibitz and Marty at the Episcopal Church in town, where we waited for a long time to ask the pastor permission to camp. Kent is kind of famous for being inhospitable to hikers (with a large private school a stones throw away, the town is a very pricey introduction to New England), but with a free night of camping in the city limits and a nice salad and burger at a pizza place, I was smitten. So smitten that the next morning I didn’t make it out of town until 3, trying to wait out the heat (the heat wave was on its last legs). I had a lazy morning of coffee shops, laundry, and a long lunch at a diner before hiking out to Silver Hill campsite. This place was a real hidden gem of the trail–a picnic shelter, lots of flat ground for tenting, and a bench swing to eat your dinner in! Marty caught up with Crusher and I a little later, but Jibitz had pushed on to the next shelter since she managed to escape the Kent vortex earlier than us.

  Crusher and I avoided a nasty trail detour in Connecticut by getting a hitch across a bridge from two section hikers. The detour would have taken us on three miles of road walk through a construction zone before spitting us back onto the trail. By staying on the old AT, we got to see the Great Falls of Falls Village, and walk a nice flat section of handicapped-accessible trail along the Housatonic River. It started to pour as soon as we got into these guys’ conversion van as well, which would have made those three exposed miles a lot more unpleasant than our walk through the woods.

  In Salisbury, CT, I got interviewed by a newspaper intern from the Lakeville Journal, and got to talk journalism with his boss for a while. Salisbury was also one of the first non-gas station resupplies I’ve had in a while, which was much appreciated. That night I caught up with Jibitz and Gordito and Bumpin, two section hikers who would be getting off the trail in Lee, Mass. My parents had given them a hitch into Vernon, NJ, when they visited, so it was great to see them again and catch up. We also met our first real southbounder, or sobo. AT culture has a lot of inside jokes, and one of them is that sobos are at best total weirdos and at worst aspiring members of the Manson family. Since most of the hiker herd goes northbound, those that choose to do a southbound hike (Katahdin to Springer) are going to be spending most of their hike (probably from Northern Virginia south) alone, or with the few sobos who have toughed out the trail to that point. Whoopie Pie, a Mainer, was a lot of fun to joke around with about the sobo stereotype. The best part about meeting sobos is getting information on the trail to come–good hostels and shelters, places to avoid, expected mileage in the Whites and Central Maine, etc. I wrote down a lot of Whoopie Pie’s recommendations and they have treated me well so far.

  One recommendation was Upper Goose Pond Cabin. This place was a dream–a big enclosed cabin with an upper bunk room and a downstairs living room, and a gorgeous pond with a canoe for thru-hikers to take out for a paddle. In the morning the cabin caretaker, Grampy, cooked us a big pancake breakfast. Jibitz left early, but Crusher and I had a lazy morning saying goodbye to Bumpin and Gordito, who were getting off the trail to pursue their Next Big Things. Good luck in all you do, guys!

  After Upper Goose we stopped in at the Cookie Lady, a legendary trail character and owner of a pick-your-own blueberry farm. The Cookie Lady was not in, but the Cookie Man was. The couple has been giving homemade cookies to hikers for decades, and selling sodas and hardboiled eggs out of their garage. We had a nice lunch under the shade of a tree munching on our snacks and playing with their dog. We pushed on to Dalton, Mass., where we stayed at another legend’s house. Tom Levardi has been letting hikers stay in his home for 30 years, and does not expect or accept donations. He did our laundry, let us shower (my first since my parents visited, almost two weeks!), and gave us a room with real beds and fresh sheets. He even gave us clothes to explore town in so we could was all of our clothes and not have to walk around in rain gear. As far as trail angels go, Levardi is one of the best.

  After a massive breakfast at the Dalton Restaurant (two breakfast specials, coffee and juice), I summited Mt. Greylock, the highest peak in Massachusetts at 3,492 ft. The trail hits a number of the state high points–Clingman’s Dome in Tennessee (6,643 ft), Mt. Rogers in Virginia (5,729), High Point in Jersey (1,803), Mt. Washington in New Hampshire (6,288), and Mt. Katahdin in Maine (5,268). As far as views go, the one from Greylock has been the best of the high points I’ve hit. I could see a clear outline of Mt. Monadnock, where I first started hiking. After climbing down Greylock in the dark, I spent a creepy night at the Seth Warren shelter with a hitch-hiker who’d been dumped on the trail and was “hiking” home to Kentucky. After twenty minutes of conversation with this kid, I packed up my bag and said I was going to set up my tent because the bugs were bad. Trail lesson number one for me has been to trust my gut when dealing with two-legged animals.

  My last day in Mass. was spent with my Dad, who came out to visit with me and tour MassMOCA. He’s got a great entry complete with pictures over on his blog. We even ran into Jibitz and Crusher when I resupplied at the grocery store–I was happy he got to meet some of the people I’ve been hiking with lately. He left me at the trailhead on Rt. 2 and I hiked two miles into Vermont for the night with Crusher. Only three states left, eleven down!

   

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  jl0193a 10:20 pm on July 22, 2010 Permalink | Reply  

  NJ/NY 

  The first of two belated posts:

  It took me 12 days to get through New Jersey and New York, which is about 160 miles of mostly flat trail. The low mile-per-day average is partly due to a heat wave that hit us in New York and partly due to some well-deserved days off with my parents.

  The New Jersey state line is in the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. The town of Delaware Water Gap itself had a nice bakery where I ate a personal pan cheesecake, and an outfitter where I replaced my severely mauled trekking poles (thanks, Pennsylvania Rocks). I camped with a big group of hiking friends a handful of miles into NJ in a beautiful field. Jibitz, who I’ve been hiking with since central Virginia, had a set of portable speakers for her iPod, which necessitated a dance party after dinner. I had a good time getting to know some of the new hikers in our vicinity–Bumper and Breeze, two Temple grads and possibly the most positive people I have ever met; and WrongWay, a backpacking guide from California who hikes in Chacos.

  One of the best things about New Jersey, New York and Connecticut was the so-called Deli Walk, a stretch of trail where thru-hikers can grab lunch almost every day within a mile of the trail. We hit our first stop at Kevin’s Steaks in Culvers Gap on our second day into Jersey. The bartender/owner was super nice to us hikers and fed us well. I had a delicious brownie ice cream sundae and a steak with sweet potato fries and a salad–pretty good eating after subsisting on Lipton Noodle Sides and Snickers bars for so long.

  Another great stop on that stretch of trail was the Mayor’s House in Unionville, NY. The guy who runs this hiker hostel, Dick, was once the mayor of this little burg and followed his late wife’s dream of opening a place for hikers to stay. Dick wasn’t in when I stayed there, but he has a real cast of characters working for him. There’s Butch, Dick’s second-in-command, who lays down the rules for new arrivals: If you use a three-or-more-syllable word, you have to put a dollar into the cuss word jar. If you call Butch “sir,” you will be punched in the arm. If a female hiker calls Butch “sir,” he will punch the hiker closest to the offending female. You also have to put up with Bill, the seemingly ancient Korean war vet who cooks dinner and breakfast. Bill grills every hiker for about five minutes–either until they can’t take it anymore or he gets bored. I asked Bill what he would take as a trail name if he did the trail, and he said “Humperdink TigerLily,” because who would pick such a stupid name to call themselves? Basically the boys at the Mayor’s House make fun of you for doing something as ridiculous as hiking the trail from the minute you get there until you walk out the door. The one touching moment–and supposedly Dick cries every time–is when they show you this video clip of Paul Potts singing “Nessun Dorma” on a British TV show. Butch gave a long speech before playing the clip about how it was supposed to inspire us to finish our trek. I love the idea, but it was very difficult to stifle my laughter at the absurdity of the moment. I stayed up with Fynious and Hustle & Flo, two section hikers we’d met back in PA, watching “Into the Wild” before falling asleep on the couch.

  The day after the Mayor’s, I booked it to a garden center to meet up with my folks who were visiting for the Fourth of July weekend. You can read my Dad’s account of the weekend (complete with pictures) here. We ate delicious meals, watched many episodes of Cash Cab, performed trail magic a few times for fellow hikers and visited my trail namesake’s hometown, Sleepy Hollow.

  Our first stop on the Fourth was Sunnyside, Washington Irving’s estate. “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” comes from Irving’s collection of short stories, “The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.” The original volume of “The Sketch Book” was on the shelf of Irving’s study–an arm’s reach away on our tour. I chose “Ichabod” as my nom de guerre for the trail since I’m going to be getting my Master’s of Library Science this fall, but Irving’s description of the young schoolteacher is strikingly familiar:

  The cognomen of Crane was not inapplicable to his person. He was tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and his whole frame most loosely hung together. His head was small, and flat at top, with huge ears, large green glassy eyes, and a long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weather-cock, perched upon his spindle neck, to tell which way the wind blew. To see him striding along the profile of a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and fluttering about him one might have mistaken him for the genius of famine descending upon the earth, or some scarecrow eloped from a cornfield.

  We also stopped by Lyndhurst, the gothic mansion of robber baron Jay Gould, and saw a fantastic fireworks display in Sleepy Hollow proper that night.

  My parents visited during the worst of the heat wave that hit the North East this July, but it was still very hot when they dropped me off at the trailhead on the 6th. I only made it 8 miles before I more or less collapsed on top of a mountain for the night. After my night alone, I started hiking with The Crusher, a French-Canadian advertising copywriter from Montreal. You can read his blog (Google Translate might help) at 5 Millions de Pas.

  Once the heat subsided, Crusher and I had some good times in New York. We stayed at the Greymoor Friary, a Franciscan monastery that lets hikers camp on their soccer pitch. We also visited Bear Mountain State Park and Zoo (the trail goes right through the zoo and hits its lowest point, 124 feet above sea level, at the bear habitat. We were discouraged to know that it was more or less all uphill from there to Katahdin. We had some good luck with trail magic in New York too–a group of trail maintainers at the RPH shelter put on a big cookout with steaks and salad, and one trail-side cooler had huge pieces of iced watermelon.

  We spent our last night in the state at a garden center, camped out between the Metro-North train tracks and a very busy road. The only thing that made the night pleasant was magic from a true trail character, Paddy’O. Crusher and I met him that afternoon and he agreed to meet us that night. He made us calzones (“‘zones”), trail bombs (basically an Irish car bomb with bourbon instead of Jameson), and serenaded us with Sinatra’s “I Did it My Way,” which may have rivaled the Paul Potts video for absurd inspirational attempts. All in all, a wonderful twelve days through the Mid Atlantic and into New England.

   
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  jl0193a 1:38 pm on July 6, 2010 Permalink | Reply  

  MD/PA 

  I’m playing catch-up with my trail journal, so this is going to be the highlights instead of a play-by-play.

  6/29/2010

  Here’s a theory: the reason that things are named along the A.T., even silly little hills or dinky challenges like the Rollercoaster, is because hikers love to complain. It just sounds a lot better to whine, “Jeez that Devil’s Racecourse was a real pain,” than to cry, “I didn’t think I was going to make it up Unnamed Peak 13.” OK, maybe Peak 13 would be a good one, but you get the idea. While the A.T. is a physically demanding task as a whole, the individual climbs–especially from Northern Virginia through Massachusetts–are not that challenging. But still the names. Because hikers thrive on complaining. It is what gets them through the day, up the mountain and down the other side. The section of the trail we complain about the most? The Pennsylvania Rocks. I’m going to capitalize that because they have earned my respect by destroying my body over the past two weeks.

  I didn’t believe the hype about the Rocks. When I got back on the trail, I told myself I would the state of Pennsylvania. The elevation profile was the flattest we had seen the entire trip. What could be so hard about some rocks? A lot, as it turns out. Fynious, Jibitz and I knocked out Maryland in our first two days on the trail. Well before the state line into PA, the trail started to get rocky. Very rocky. Boulder field after boulder field. Jagged little rocks sticking up out of the dirt. Small rocks that move when you step on them. Big rocks that move when you step on them. What made the Pennsylvania Rocks a real challenge was less the pain you felt at the end of the day from rock-walking for seven or eight hours, but moreso the mental exhaustion. Having to look down all day, actively thinking about every step you take and where there is some clear or at least less-jagged spot to place your foot–this is a really draining activity. To summarize, let’s just say I’m glad to be out of PA.

  That being said, there were some high points in the slog since my time off in D.C. I went “whitewater tubing” down the Potomac when Tim and Laura drove me back to Harpers Ferry. The actual tube ride down the river wasn’t nearly as fun as the bus ride up to the put-in point, because we had a woman driving our bus who was at the very least a little buzzed and at worst clinically insane.

  Maryland went quick, but PA highlights are legion. Our first trail town was Boiling Springs, a cute town where a historic resort, the Allenberry, was running a “hiker special.” Our guidebooks listed the rooms as $25/night, about $100 less than the normal guests were paying. By the time we got there, the rates had gone up to $40 for a double room. Apparently management had some issues with hikers–people turning the hot tub brown from being dirty, stealing toilet paper from the rooms, basically being hiker trash. We even had an issue the day I was there. Some kid, Space Bag, had allegedly jumped off a balcony into the swimming pool and gotten kicked out. In the registers for a couple days of of town, someone (I assume Space Bag) kept writing “Did Space Bag jump? The world may never know.” Whether he did it or not, his perceived behavior is going to make things worse for hikers who go through there in the future, and probably make this the last season that the Allenberry offers a reduced rate to folks on the trail. This place was truly wonderful, though, and well worth the $20 I paid to split a room with Fynious. Laundry, hot tub, swimming pool, gorgeous grounds, a game room with pool and ping pong, and an all-you-can-eat dinner buffet with prime rib for only $15.

  We also found out while we were at the Allenberry just how famous our hiking partner Jibitz is. She’s a very nice middle-aged woman from Maine, and a very experienced hiker. She’s one of only 3 woman to summit all 48 4,000 footers in New Hampshire in every month of the year. It took her two years to do the 576 climbs. Madness! So we were sitting around on the grounds of the resort, and this couple walks up to her who had done a hike with her years ago. Jibitz didn’t remember them, but these folks had driven out to surprise her from Baltimore! They drove us to the grocery store and to run a couple of other errands. Very nice folks. This would not be the last time that knowing Jibitz has resulted in trail magic from other hikers.

  Other PA highlights–the Doyle Hotel in Duncannon, this old Budweiser hotel which is now a dive bar and the kind of place that rents a room by the week. Fynious and I opted to stay at the town’s campground instead of the hotel (a decision we were later told was the right one), but not before lightening the bar’s keg of Yuengling by a schooner glass or four. Port Clinton, where I got a trail magic cookout from Mennonite dairy farmers. Farm-fresh hamburgers and homemade ice cream, and Pennsylvania Dutch style cookies. Up the road in Hamburg, where I completed the dollar menu challenge at McDonalds, and then had to walk the 2 miles back to Port Clinton because we couldn’t get a hitch. Hamburg also had a Cabela’s, which is probably the size of three Super WalMarts, big enough to contain a literal mountain of dead animals, yet doesn’t have any kind of functional hiking gear.

  At the Eckville Shelter 15 miles out of Port Clinton, I got magic from another couple that knows Jibitz–M&M and Pootz. These two met on the trail during their 2007 thru-hike, and were out to relive some moments from their trip. They brought out three pizzas and a bunch of beer and soda, and then even slack-packed me the next day into the town of Palmerton. Very nice couple, and I hope to be able to pay their kindness forward some day on the trail. Since I was only carrying a little food and water, I was able to fly into town while listening to the US get knocked out of the World Cup on the radio. I had a hell of a time getting into the town after a state trooper told me I couldn’t hitch. I had to bushwack my way down a ridge, climb over a railroad fence, cross a bridge then climb over another fence and sneak through someone’s backyard to get to the jailhouse hostel, directions to which I had to ask from skateboarders because the police station was closed. I was able to end my day with a cheese steak, pie and a chocolate milk shake, so all’s well that ends well.

  Fynious, two section hikers named Hustle and Flo, and I zero-ed in town the next day to watch more soccer. The bartender at the Palmerton Hotel opened the door for us at 9 so we could watch the game. And then the next game. We had originally planned to leave, but after much soccer, wings and beer we decided to stay another night. This let Jibitz catch up (we had lost her at the Allenberry, and then again at Port Clinton), and we did the climb out of Palmerton together. Lehigh Gap is a Superfund site because zinc smelting in the area killed all the vegetation. That means this whole ridge we climbed up was just bare rock, totally exposed. It also meant great views of the Lehigh River and town below.

  It took us two more rocky days to get to New Jersey from Palmerton. We spent the first night in a motel in Wind Gap. The second day we walked through the nice border town of Delaware Water Gap, and then across the highway bridge into NJ. It always feels great to walk into a new state–I was welcomed into Jersey by a mother bear and three cubs. I’ve heard that Jersey is the most surprising section for thru-hikers, in that the section of the state the trail passes through is so wild and beautiful. Getting welcomed by a bear seems like a good omen. Next update–NJ/NY.

  Katahdin-bound!–Ichabod

   
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  jl0193a 12:45 pm on July 6, 2010 Permalink | Reply  

  Harpers Ferry, W.V. 

  6/10/2010

  Hello from D.C. I’m taking a few days off to visit friends in the city, but on the trail I’ve left off at Harpers Ferry, W.V. That means I’m at the “psychological halfway point,” and done with the southern states’ portion of the A.T. I’ve had some great adventures since my last update.

  After leaving Waynesboro (Kristy, our trail goddess, drove us all over town the morning of the 1st to run errands, and then dropped us off at the trailhead. Thanks for the support, Kristy!), we did a short day into Shenandoah National Park and stayed at the first shelter. Shortly after we all bedded down for the night, my hiking friend Jibitz screamed out loud–a large black mass in the corner of the shelter she had thought was trash turned out to be a very, very large spider. Luckily the shelter had two stories, so we all crowded into the lower, spider-less area. I had dreams that the spider had built a fake shelter to trap hikers as prey, and that the entire park was staffed by giant, Smokey-the-Bear-esque spiders wearing ranger outfits. Luckily, neither of these dreams came out to be true.

  After two months on the trail, I finally saw a black bear. The trail through SNP parallels Skyline Drive, a scenic byway built during the Great Depression by the Civilian Conservation Corps. All along this road are waysides, buildings which contain a gift shop, short-order restaurant, and restrooms. I was taking a day off (“zero-ing”) at one of these waysides with Jibitz, Fynious and Heads Up when a black bear came out of the woods and started walking down the road. He walked right past us and up through the woods towards a camp ground. This turned out to be standard behavior not only for bears, but all wildlife within the park boundary. They definitely are aware that they are protected in the park and behave accordingly, without fear of people. I saw five more bear before I left the park, including two cubs who were mugging for tourists along the driveway to the park’s Big Meadows Lodge.

  It took me 8 days to move through the park, with 2 of those days being spent in Fairfax, Va., with a group of hikers at our friend Marty McFly’s house. We went to an REI, where I made some gear changes (lighter rain coat, lighter sleeping pad, sent home rain pants), and to Chipotle, which I didn’t know I had missed until I took my first bite of burrito. I took more time off in the park when my friends from D.C. came to visit at Big Meadows. I took them on a day hike down to a waterfall, and it started to pour on us. We tried to dry off in the lodge’s taproom, which was very reminiscent of The Shining (the lodge hasn’t been updated in many years), but I think they still went back to the city soaked to the bone.

  Instead of bear cables like they have in Georgia and North Carolina, the food-hanging system in SNP is this device called a bear pole. It is a tall iron pole with hooks on the top. Hikers use a ten-foot iron rod to hoist their food bags up onto these hooks. At one of the shelters, I was struggling to get my heavy bag of food (with all the waysides and lodges, I barely ate anything out of my own bag all through the park) up onto this rung. With the bear pole being in full-view of the shelter, my trouble getting my food bag up was the entertainment for the night. It took me a good 20 minutes to do the job, with the full shelter heckling me the entire time.

  We walked out of the park on the 8th and into Front Royal, Va., for a quick resupply and lunch. We ate at a pizza place where they must not get many hikers, because the owners kept peppering us with questions about the hike–where do you sleep? what do you eat? why on earth would you do this voluntarily? From the shelter we stayed at that night, right past Front Royal, we were only two days from Harpers Ferry and a scheduled pick-up for this time off in D.C. Fynious was catching a ride into the city with me, so we did two big days including “The Rollercoaster,” a silly section of trail so-named because it is 14 miles of sharp ascents and descents.

  The walking through Northern Va. was nice–I passed through Sky Meadows State Park in a dense fog, which felt very ethereal and other-worldly. I kept imagining the ghosts of Civil War soldiers to emerge from the trees. The walk into Harpers was nice, crossing the Shenandoah and climbing down to the historic downtown. Laura and Chris came to pick me up and got to meet some of my hiking friends, like an old German guy named Eddy who is very funny. They got a kick out of listening to him talk with another German hiker, as they both speak a bit and could understand the conversation.

  Plans for D.C.–World Cup! Old haunts! Not Hiking! Till next time.

   
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  jl0193a 12:11 pm on June 1, 2010 Permalink | Reply  

  Waynesboro, Va. 

  Checking in from a church hostel at the gateway of the Shenandoahs.

  Since leaving Glasgow I’ve been hiking with two guys, Fyneous and Heads Up. We pushed out some big miles since town, but these guys love to take breaks. Four out of the five past nights I have gotten into camp after sundown.

  The trail has been difficult, crowded and full of magic since Glasgow. Memorial Day weekend is now over, which means that the shelters will be much less crowded from here on out (even though we’re about to enter a national park). But the crowds also meant we could “yogi” (as in Yogi Bear) food. There is an art to yogi-ing, and Fyneous has mastered it. Over the long weekend we’ve scored hot dogs, hamburgers, beers, giant bags of M&Ms and Skittles, and a slack-pack and shuttle ride into Waynesboro.

  We’ve met two great sets of trail angels over the past few days. After two hours of night hiking we came up on a group of teachers from Charlottesville who had come out to car camp and feed the hikers. It had been a hard day–up and all along the massive ridge walk of The Priest, probably the best named mountain on the trail. These folks called us over, fed us, shared their beers, and even cooked us breakfast burritos in the morning.

  The other angel we met the next morning after saying goodbye to the teachers. Christi is from Lynchburg, and came out for the weekend to put toilet paper in the shelter privies and hang out with hikers. She tried to convince us to hike south to get to her campsite to hang out, but we ended up getting her to meet us 21 miles north. The whole day we were debating the odds that she would actually show up, but lo and behold, she was there when we emerged from the woods that night with cold beers and a stereo blaring death metal.

  The next morning Christi took our packs into Waynesboro for us so we could hike the 14.5 miles without the weight. I’d had my doubts about slack packing before yesterday, but now I can see why people enjoy it so much. We were flying all day down the trail, carrying nothing but water and snacks. When we got down to Rockfish Gap, Christi rolled up ten minutes later to drive us down to stay in Waynesboro and get dinner at Ming Garden (which lived up to the trail hype).

  I got most of my town errands done last night–laundry, shower, phone charge, short resupply. This morning I’m hitting Weasies for all-you-can-eat pancakes, and then heading into the park. Next update will be from D.C. on or around June 9.

  Happy Trails!

   
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  jl0193a 7:57 pm on May 27, 2010 Permalink | Reply  

  Glasgow, Va. 

  Hello from Glasgow! I’m over 1/3 of the way done with my thru-hike at 775 miles and 8 weeks on the trail.

  The past week on the trail has been great. After a wonderful stay with the Stricklands in Roanoke (including a dinner party and a delicious breakfast), I hiked to Catawba, Va., for an all-you-can-eat family style dinner at The Home Place. This restaurant was insane–fried chicken, roast beef, country ham, string beans, mashed potatoes, biscuits with apple butter and/or gravy, corn, beans, and peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream. Not to mention the gallons of sweet tea and lemonade I consumed there. Definitely a trail highlight.

  After waddling out after dinner, I didn’t feel up to walking the 1.8 road miles back to the trailhead. Luckily, a large group of thru-hikers and cross-country cyclists (the Trans-Am route runs right through town) were camping on the lawn of the general store across the street. Talking to all the cyclists was fun, and got me really excited about planning my own cross-country ride in the near future. Have to finish this hike first, though.

  There was a long road walk up from Catawba that morning (Virginia hitching has been impossible), but the trail paid off. I got great views from McAfees Knob and Tinker Cliffs before a brief rainstorm rolled in. It was so beautiful watching the rain roll into the valley from the ridge that I didn’t even mind the rain once it started. I did a big day to get into Daleville and, while an unplanned stop, a night at the Howard Johnson’s was just what I needed. A nice tall Dos Equis from the Mexican place across the street sealed the deal.

  After hitting the Pizza Hut in the morning, I did a pretty slow day in the rain to get to Wilson Creek Shelter. The next day was a big push to what is probably the nicest shelter I’ve stayed in so far, Bryant Ridge. This place was like a normal AT shelter that had been built by a maintaining club with a huge budget and a big American Craftsman influence. Two floors, multiple overhangs to cook food under, etc. There was a guy there celebrating his 50th birthday who was very, very drunk. Among other things, he told us about his history of ual relations with chickens, how he had done a “dumptruck load of ” in his day, and that he really just wanted to party in the woods and not be weighed down by us “serious” hikers. Later, he fell off the shelter ledge in a stupor (He survived). Talk about great hiker TV.

  Yesterday I swam in a river and watched a fellow hiker, Marty McFly, try and spear trout. Today I jumped off a 30-foot bridge into the James River. The point is I’m having a great time and the trail is treating me well. I’m spending the night here in Glasgow, where the town has built a shelter in the city park for hikers to sleep and shower in free of charge. Beyond a gas station that serves up some mean fried chicken and a library with unlimited internet access, the shelter is Glasgow’s only real point of interest for thru-hikers. Looking forward to Shenandoah National Park and seeing friends in D.C. in the coming weeks.

  Till then, happy trails. -Ichabod.

   
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  jl0193a 11:50 am on May 22, 2010 Permalink | Reply  

  Roanoke, Va. 

  Hello from Roanoke! I’m back on the A.T. after six days off for Damascus Trail Days and a trail maintenance project. I don’t know if I lost all my strength in six days, but the past few days of climbing have been kicking my butt. Hopefully the terrain or my endurance will improve in the coming days.

  Trail Days was a trip. I got a ride back to Damascus on Wednesday from Hyway and Chin Music, two guys from a Web forum called Trail Talk (Hyway is thru-hiking this year). Driving down 81, we passed so many hikers trying to hitch back. I’m glad I didn’t have to deal with standing on the side of the interstate. The Trail Talk folks let me crash at their camp, and basically fed me delicious food all weekend. Barbecued chicken, peppers and sausages, pulled pork, fajitas, macaroni and cheese, etc. Great people, better cooks.

  Beyond all the free food at Trail Days, it was good to catch up with hikers I’ve left behind or been passed by. Long Shanks and I got to catch up (he’s almost a week ahead of me now), and I saw two people (Sue and Soul Patch) that I haven’t seen since we started out together from Springer back on April 1. Other highlights from the weekend include renting a bike to ride the (entirely downhill) Virginia Creeper Trail, getting poison ivy from Tent City, seeing a funny and at times poignant staged reading of a play about thru-hiking, and being told by some former thru-hiker that I “reminded him of a Southbounder.”

  On Sunday I got shuttled with 100 other volunteers to Pond Flats near Watauga Lake, Tenn., for two days of trail maintenance. The volunteer project is called Hardcore, and it really is. In two days, we cut 4,000 feet of new trail (at Pond Flats and Roan Mountain) and saw the first thru-hikers walk along it. I even got to paint my own white blaze to mark the new section! Having done some trail work before out West, Hardcore really made me appreciate the volunteer clubs that keep the A.T. passable. The soil we were working in was just filled with rocks and roots. Very hard work. We did eat well at night though. Baltimore Jack made a huge spaghetti dinner on Monday night, after which we had a fun time casting the soon-to-be-produced “A Walk in the Woods” movie. The best thing Jack came up with was Jeff Daniels as Curtis from Standing Bear.

  On Tuesday, I got a ride back to Pearisburg from one of the volunteers with a car and hit the trail (post Dairy Queen, of course). I started off slow–6.5 miles the first day, 16 the next. Yesterday and the day before were both 21 or 22 mile days, which caught up with me as I came over the Dragon’s Tooth to catch my ride into Roanoke. I need to make up some miles for my days off, but six days off and I’ve gotten a little soft.

  Things to look forward to coming up on the trail:
  -The Home Place, Catawba: all-you-can-eat country cooking. For the past week, this restaurant has been like the El Dorado of the trail. We talk about it all night.
  -Ming Garden, Waynesboro: the best Chinese buffet on the entire trail. I’ve heard this place has waterfalls inside of it.
  -Shenandoah National Park: There are supposed to be plenty of food stands at the waysides along Skyline Drive, meaning you can get through the park in six days with three days of food.

  My next resupply is coming up in Glasgow, maybe five days out. Till then, Happy Trails.

  -Ichabod

  Iliana B is discussing. Toggle Comments

   
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    Iliana B 2:27 pm on June 15, 2010 Permalink

    OMG so much food, I want to visit the South. Also, who is Ichabod and what have you done with Jeff??

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  jl0193a 3:33 pm on May 12, 2010 Permalink | Reply  

  Pearisburg, Va. 

  Howdy, here’s a quick update from mile 626 as I wait for the pizza hut buffet to open.

  I’ve had some beautiful hiking since leaving Damascus. I took the Creeper Trail, an old railroad path, out of town. Gorgeous views all morning of waterfalls and rusty railroad trestles. The next morning, the terrain got even more interesting. Alpine meadows, wild ponies, and forest rangers doing blasting work up through Mount Rogers and Grayson Highlands.

  Since I have pizza on the mind, let me tell you about what non-trail food I’ve been eating this past week. I spent a night at a church-run hostel in Troutdale, Va., and had a huge double bacon cheeseburger at the restaurant down the road. Later that night, a thru-hiker named Southpaw came up the road with 10 more cheeseburgers for the folks at the hostel. Nothing like trail magic from other hikers.

  At Partnership Shelter, I ordered a large pizza, an order of cheesy breadsticks, and a half-gallon of sweet tea. Only the breadsticks survived the night. The next day, I had a pulled pork sandwich and a slice of chocolate pie at the Barn Restaurant in Atkins, Va. Not to be outdone by Atkins, the town of Bland provided me with a Subway sandwich and a pint of chocolate milk. The next day I walked into a little crossroads of a town to have a chocolate milkshake and a philly cheesesteak. And then when I got into Pearisburg yesterday, I headed straight for the Chinese buffet.

  The problem with my guidebook is that, in addition to listing the shelters and water sources, it also will include an “M” for meals at road crossings. After hiking 15 or 16 miles, I’ve found I really don’t have the willpower to resist walking or hitching a mile or more out of the way to find out what that “M” is. Got to pack in the calories though–I’m losing weight and really can’t afford to lose much more.

  More updates from Damascus during Trail Days! Till then, happy hiking.

  Bryce is discussing. Toggle Comments

   
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    Bryce 5:46 pm on May 15, 2010 Permalink

    Great update Ichabod. It’s funny how much you talk about off-the-trail-food–you must get hungry. Probably a significant gastronomic change of pace from what you were eating a few months ago. Let the trail magic flow.

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  jl0193a 5:55 pm on May 2, 2010 Permalink | Reply  

  Damascus, Va. 

  Just lost a whole draft of a post after letting some guy use this computer for 5 minutes. So this will be a shorter recap.

  Been a week since my last post–new month, new state. After my last post from Erwin, Long Shanks, Maple and I moved to Uncle Johnny’s hostel from the Holiday Inn. The place was a real dump, but the one redeeming factor was that they had bikes that hikers could use to ride into town. It felt great to be back in the saddle again–after moving at 3 miles/hour for a month, cruising along Erwin’s bike path at 15 felt absolutely wonderful. We did an 18-mile roundtrip ride to Wal-Mart, the only place in the county that sells beer on Sundays, and had a nice cookout for dinner back at the hostel.

  The climb out of Erwin (after another bike ride in to the post office and Huddle House) was nice, but the weather took a turn for the worst around lunch time. Long Shanks and I were soaked by the time we finished our 16.4 miles to Cherry Gap Shelter, and had to set up our tents in the rain. We cooked dinner under the vestibules of our tents and caught up with Two Rings and Mr. Vix, who were tenting right next to us.

  The next morning, we put on our wet clothes so that we would have something dry to change into at the end of the day. This idea probably saved our lives, because in the afternoon we got more rain just as we were beginning a 2,400-foot ascent of Roan Mountain. The higher we got, the worse the weather. Rain turned to sleet turned to hail turned to snow. By the time we got to the summit, there was an inch or two on the ground. We stopped at about 15.4 miles to spend the night at the Roan High Knob Shelter, elev. 6,285. We managed to get dry and warm up in our bags–thanks to our warm clothes–as the overnight low dropped to 30 degrees inside the shelter.

  In the morning all of our wet gear was literally frozen. I had to take my frozen socks into my sleeping bag with me to thaw them out. I had to put my shoes on frozen, and couldn’t tie my laces until they had thawed out from my body heat after about three miles of hiking. The 27th was a beautiful day of hiking, miles and miles of open balds and wonderful views. The snow (which got to be about 3 inches on top of Roan) disappeared after we dropped 1,000 feet. For dinner we hitched in to a little country cooking joint for double bacon cheeseburgers, and bought a six-pack to hike out with. I did my first bit of night-hiking to pull out a 21.5 mile day, and camped next to a nice stream with Maple and Long Shanks.

  On the 29th, we did 18 miles to get into Kincora Hostel by 3:30. The place was full, so we tented out back. By the time the dinner shuttle rolled out, there were probably 30 or 40 people there, with folks tenting or sleeping on the floor inside. I got a Little Caesar’s Hot and Ready pizza, an old favorite of mine from my days working in Kingsport, Tenn., and returned to Kincora for a big spaghetti dinner prepared by another thru-hiker.

  On the 30th we had an uneventful 18-mile day, with a nice swim and lunch on the shores of Watauga Lake. Yesterday was great, though. I didn’t think I could eat better than a pizza followed by spaghetti, but Long Shanks and I caught 3 separate trail magics in 3 hours. The first was a bear box maintained by a local church, which had cokes and oatmeal pies. The next was an Episcopalian pastor who was grilling hot dogs at a road crossing. The last (and best) was a thru-hiker whose Dad had driven out from Chicago for his birthday. Beers, brats, birthday cake, watermelon, oranges, even moonshine. I was definitely weaving for the last few miles to the shelter. All that trail magic made it easy to pull out a 22-mile day.

  Today I got out of the shelter early and made it the 10 miles into Damascus, Va., by 9:30. I got a bunk at a church-run hostel, had breakfast, lunch, stopped in at the outfitter to get a pack cover, and then had some coffee and caught up on e-mail. I’ll take a nero out of town tomorrow after lunch. I’m thinking about blue-blazing my way on the Virginia Creeper Trail, a rail-to-trail path that is supposed to be more moderate and scenic than the A.T. out of town.

  Not sure when my next town stop will be–I’m doing a resupply in Atkins, but might not have internet for a pretty good stretch. I’ll be hitching back to Damascus on the 14th for Trail Days, the biggest of the town-sponsored thru-hike bashes. Should be a good time, and I’m looking forward to catching up with folks I’ve left behind. Might not have an update till then. Hiking alone out of Damascus–Long Shanks, who I’ve been hiking with for about 10 days, is going to pick up his pace to finish in 4.5 months.

  Oh, and I finally decided to choose a trail name for myself. I’m going by Ichabod.

  Happy Hiking!

   
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  jl0193a 11:34 am on April 25, 2010 Permalink | Reply  

  Erwin, Tenn. 

  In town again here in Erwin, Tennessee. I pushed a couple of boxes forward to the post office here, so today will actually be my first zero day. Should be able to hit the trail early on Monday once I hit the P.O. Here’s what has been going on since Hot Springs.

  That town was a trip–super small, something like 400 people, and about a half-mile long main street. So most everyone you see walking around is a fellow hiker. It was like being back in my home town, saying hi to all the folks I meet on the street. The hikers in town more or less took over this bar that night and had a great time. I hit that diner again in the morning and did a short day (11 miles) to get to Spring Mountain Shelter. The climb out of Hot Springs was huge, but there was a great view of the town and French Broad River from the cliff once you made it up. Set up my tent that night for the first time in a couple weeks.

  On the 22nd, I did a long day–21.3 miles from Spring Mountain to Flint Mountain Shelter. There were some very gnarly mountains in between. On top of one, there was a “bad weather” blue-blazed trail, because the A.T. was totally exposed on top. Very rocky, a lot like the hiking will be up in the Whites. That day we crossed the 300 mile mark! A day behind my three weeks on the trail, but I am more or less at the 100 miles a week that I’m trying to maintain to finish in 5 months.

  For the last few miles of Thursday and the last two days I’ve been hiking with Long Shanks, a guy from NH/Montana in his late twenties. It’s been a nice change to hike with someone during the day, not only to have someone to talk to, but also to be able to set my pace to someone a little faster than me and get out some big miles. Friday we did 19.6 to Bald Mountain Shelter, with a HUGE up at the end of the day to get on top of the bald. Beautiful view, although the bald itself wasn’t as pretty as Max Patch. First 5,000 footer since the Smokies, though! Right before that climb we caught some trail magic at a road crossing. I don’t even like Pepsi, but when these guys offered that up it tasted amazing. At the shelter that night, I caught up with Long John, who I hadn’t seen since the Smokies.

  On Saturday Long Shanks and I did 17 miles of (mostly) downhill to get down into Erwin. The town is a bit removed from the trail, but the Holiday Inn Express we’re staying at was only a mile of road walking. We got in around 3, booked a room for two and crammed in six (us plus Ponytail Dave, Inferno and Fastlane, and Maple), had some beers, went to a pizza buffet, and watched Ratatouille on TV.

  The breakfast here is great. Warm sticky buns, eggs, sausage, biscuits, cereal, etc. Today is my first zero, so I’m looking forward to maybe seeing a movie, doing a resupply at the grocery store, and figuring out a plan for the next couple of weeks.

  Should be checking in again from Damascus on May 2nd or 3rd. Happy Trails!