Appalachian Trail - Cornelius Creek Shelter to Stanimal's Hiker Hostel

 It rained. All. Night. Long. We were warm and dry in our bags, though, and aside from a brief bat visit, the night was quiet and uneventful.  Just before dawn, the sound of a very loud, screaming owl pierced the air. If we weren’t in Virginia, I’d have thought it was a monkey!

We took our time packing up as we knew we wouldn’t be hiking far today. We planned to hike either six or ten miles and then be shuttled to a hostel in a nearby town to dry out our gear. 

We were thankful for the reprieve from the rain Cornelius Creek Shelter had given us, but it was time to go.  

As soon as we could get cell service, we’d figure out our plan. After about a mile, we were able to reach our shuttle driver, Corey, who had dropped us off at the start of our hike. He had several people to shuttle and gave us the option of being picked up at 5pm or 10:15am. We chose the latter. Now that we knew we were going to be dry soon, we enjoyed the trail a little bit more. It really was beautiful with the rain and the fog and the fall leaves everywhere. 

There are some enormous trees on this trail and every time we pass one we think of those who have passed by the same trees through the years. 

A short while later we were approaching Sunset Field, which was our pick up spot. Someone had left some drinking water beside the trail, but there was much more water available now since it had been raining nonstop for more than 24 hours. 

We sat in the parking lot waiting for Corey to arrive. We were excited to be heading to the hostel to regroup!

And then we were in his car, flying down the Blue Ridge Parkway, taking in the views of the foggy mountains, and holding on for dear life!

Upon arrival at Stanimal’s Hiker Hostel, we had the pleasure of meeting Nellie, the sweetest girl ever. We made our way to our room, exploded our gear everywhere, hung our tents to dry, and decided to walk to the Dollar General for snacks and shower supplies. 

The road through Glasgow was busy with traffic and had no shoulders, and we hurried along, occasionally stepping off into the weeds to avoid being hit by cars. We filled our baskets with snacks and pop and soap and shampoo and all the little comforts we hadn’t had on the trail. 

Once back at the hostel, we took glorious showers and washed all of our clothes. We were fresh and clean again!

The next order of business was food. We wanted a real meal, so we headed to the one and only restaurant in town, Scotto’s, and indulged in some good Italian food. We took half our meals back to the hostel for later-there was so much!

After our meal, Corey showed up at the hostel with cider beer for us from a local brewery! We hung out for a while and another hiker showed up while Corey left on a shuttle run. We sat outside in the cool fall air and talked to the hiker, trail name Chef, and took selfies with Nellie. 

When it got too chilly outside, we went inside and listened to Chef play the guitar while we watched the hikers Corey had picked up stumble in and unpack and get settled. 

Before bed, we talked Corey into pampering himself with some under eye patches we had picked up. It was a first for him and we all had a good time. 

This was not the Day 4 we had planned, but we were happy to be warm and clean and have dry tents to take back out onto the trail in the morning. 

Miles hiked: 3

Total elevation gain: 892 feet 

Appalachian Trail - Cove Mountain Shelter to Cornelius Creek Shelter

The rain began just before 4am. The rain began pouring down by 4:15am. I was so thankful we were warm and dry inside our tents. For the next two hours, I drifted in and out of sleep before fully waking around 6:30am. Misty was awake, too, and we quickly packed up our gear. We decided to start the day in full rain gear as it was still coming down pretty good. We stuck our packs in the shelter while we packed up our wet, muddy tents. Ugh. They were so heavy and I had no idea how we’d get them dry again. 

We were on the trail before 8am and everything was foggy and beautiful. Our plan for the day was to either hike 17.2 miles to a shelter or 20 miles to a water source with camping. We had some major climbing to do, so we decided to play it by ear. 

After just a mile into the day, we stopped to remove all of our rain gear. We were hot already and were about to start our first climb. The rain had simmered down a bit and we passed several southbound hikers along the way. 

At Mile 3 we stopped for water. What had been just a slight trickle in the creek the day before was now a good flow today with all of the rain.  To top it off, someone had left two gallon jugs of water near the creek. We decided to fill our bottles with some of that water and then made our way down to the creek to gather more. After having little to no water options the previous two days, we wanted all the water we could get!

The rain was really coming down now and we couldn’t wait to get back into the trees, which blocked a lot of the rain from getting to us.  Mid-morning, we stopped at Bryant Ridge Shelter for a pack break out of the rain.  We were instantly cold and put our rain gear back on over our drenched clothes. We also dumped out our creek water to lighten our loads. We had a huge climb ahead of us and I was exhausted already. 

As we left the shelter, I questioned if we were making the right choice. Should we have stayed there and gotten into dry clothes to get warm?  A mile later, we were warm from the steep climbing, and I felt  better about keeping moving. Even this little turtle was on the move!

This climb was about 3,000 feet over 1.7 miles. We’d hike up steeply and then there would be a little downhill section which would have me freezing again. Then the trail would climb higher and I’d warm up again, only to get chilled again on the next downhill. As we climbed higher and higher in elevation, the wind became stronger and the temperature dropped.  I was not warm in my rain gear over sopping wet clothes. I started to panic a little bit. We decided we would call it a day when we came to the next shelter. It was so cold and windy at the summit of this mountain, and I couldn’t wait to get down to lower levels.

Over the last two miles, I came up with a get-warm plan. As soon as I got to the shelter, I planned to lay out my pad and sleeping bag, strip down completely naked, get into my sleeping bag liner and then get into my sleeping bag. I just hoped no one was in the shelter when we arrived, or they’d be getting a show!

Thankfully, we had Cornelius Creek Shelter to ourselves, and I stuck to my plan. Misty chose to do the same and soon we were both completely naked but warm in our bags!

When we were slightly warmer and could function a little better, we put clothes on-lots of clothes-and then made hot chocolate. It was glorious. 

We hung all of our clothes to dry on hooks and lines all over the shelter.  We had little hope that things would dry out but it was better than leaving things in heaping wet piles on the floor.  We tried to send out a few texts, but service wavered between one bar and satellite service, and we weren’t sure anyone was receiving our messages. 

By 5pm we were warm and ready for dinner, which we chose to make from the comfort of our sleeping bags. As we did so, a group of four men came into the shelter. These guys were a funny group-all brothers-from Pennsylvania and they just needed a short break from the still pouring rain.  We chatted until they decided to move on and we were thankful we wouldn’t be sharing the shelter with all of them, even though we would’ve if they had needed to do so.

Misty and I sat and ate our dinners and then enjoyed some hot cider.  As darkness began to set in, we chatted a bit, watching our gear and clothes drip from the rain into little puddles on the shelter floor.  We hadn't made it as far as we had planned, but we made a safe decision based on the weather conditions. Tomorrow, we decided, we’d head to a hostel to get things clean and dried out-including ourselves!

Total miles: 12.19

Total elevation gain: 3,176 feet

Appalachian Trail - Fullhardt Knob Shelter to Cove Mountain Shelter

 Misty and I awoke long before we had planned and were up and mostly packed before 7am. It was so lovely to see the sun rising through the trees! We took the time to make coffee and have breakfast before hitting the trail. By 7:30 we were ready to go. 

We began our hike with a downhill section from Fullhardt Knob. Before we knew it, though, we were climbing again. 

Weighing heavily on my mind was the issue of water. Things were dry here. Very dry. Many listed water sources had clearly not had water in some time. We came to a small pool of water a few miles in that was filled with minnows. The water looked clear, though, so we filled our bottles. If we found something better down the trail, we could always swap it out. 

We continued on and there seemed to be so many more uphills than downhills. It was quite torturous and we stopped for pack breaks often. 

 Around six miles in, we came across a man gathering water and we chatted with him while we filled our bottles. This water was slowly trickling but it was flowing with the help of a well-placed leaf, and we were happy with that! The man informed us that the next possible water was ten miles ahead. That was good with us, since we could fill up before heading to our campsite which we knew had no water. 

The day was warming up quickly, and we were thankful to have the water. Soon the trail spit us out onto an overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway. The view was amazing from that vantage point!

We continued on the trail while the parkway continued parallel to us. At least we were in the shade and not out there on the road! Each time as we left the parkway, we’d have a long steep climb up and away. Pack breaks continued quite often, and the heat of the day was starting to get to us. 

Also at the parkway overlooks were an abundance of lantern flies. These are beautiful but invasive little creatures. Even so, I couldn’t bring myself to kill any of them. 

We continued on, climbing in the hot sun and then dropping down to the shade. The rocks were abundant and my feet were feeling it. 

Mid-afternoon we stopped for a break, and we were hot. I don’t think I have ever sweated so much in my life or wanted to drink so much water. I had drunk two liters since our last stop, but I was saving one in case the next water source was dried up. 

We came to the water source, which ended up being a nasty pipe coming out of a mud hole into a questionable pool. We had no choice. We were three miles from camp and needed water. The minnow water from earlier suddenly became much more preferable. We couldn’t fill our bottles completely due to how shallow the pool was, so we just did the best we could with the small trickle coming out of the pipe. In the end, we had one liter of minnow water and about a liter and a half of this gross water. We decided we’d filter and treat this water at camp before using it and just drank our filtered minnow water for the last three miles. 

Up next was a long, slow mile-high climb up Cove Mountain. It was brutal. Our packs felt heavier than ever, it was so hot, we were so thirsty, and I could barely get my feet to move forward. 

Despite the difficult climb, the views were amazing! Once we made it to the top, we had some lovely downhill moments, despite the rocks. The fall colors were coming out nicely and we were nearing the end of our day. 

Just after mile nineteen, we came to our shelter and camping area. We were so thankful to get our packs off of our shoulders and threw up our tents quickly. While we made dinner, we also boiled, filtered and chemically treated our disgusting, yellowish water. Thankfully, after all of that, the water looked clear and tasted good. We only had about a liter and a half for breakfast and to get us to the next water supply. Tomorrow was calling for rain and cooler temps, so I hoped we could get by with a little less water. 

After dinner we retreated to our tents where we cleaned ourselves up and got our things organized. We lounged there chatting for a long time. Eventually, another hiker came in and set up a tent. We’d have to find out about the water situation from him in the morning!

Once again, the crickets and birds and other insects were chirping and chittering away full force as we drifted off to sleep. 

Total miles: 19.2

Total elevation gain: 3,822 feet