Is there a better time for hiking than fall? I've been to some amazing places in the last month, but the Appalachian Trail has my heart. With just 134 miles left to hike in Virginia, Misty and I made a plan to finish the state: Nine days, no hostel stays or re-supply points-just pack it up and go. Generally on the AT, you hike through towns every three to four days, so there's never a need to carry a lot of food, but we weren't going to do that this time, so we were carrying Nine. Days. Of. Food. Let me tell you, that adds some weight! To add to our loads, we were going into this section knowing that water was scarce. That would mean carrying up to three liters at a time. A liter weighs 2.2 pounds, so three liters would be 6.6 pounds! The weight was sure to be an issue. This wasn't our first rodeo, though, and we were both confident that we'd get it done.
The first day of October arrived, and we were on the road by 5am. We had a near ten hour drive ahead of us and we still had hiking to do after that! Misty had arranged for a shuttle driver to meet us in Waynesboro, Virginia where we would leave my car for the week. He would then drive us to the start in Daleville, and we'd simply hike back to my truck over the course of the next nine days.
Corey, our shuttle driver, along with his sweet dog, Ada, drove us to Daleville, where we had ended our very first AT section hike in 2023. We reminisced on how we didn't know anything back then about the trail or backpacking or anything and we had just been winging it the whole time. We sure have learned a lot in the last three years!
We hit the trail with less than two hours of daylight left, and with five miles of trail that held nearly 1,700 feet of elevation gain. Contrary to what we expected, the trail did not go straight up, but instead held both steep uphills and downhills, bridges, and, of course, rocks.
We were racing the sunset, it was 86°, and we were dripping with sweat. My pack was sooooo heavy, especially on the steepest uphills. It was great to be back in the Appalachian Mountains, though, and we continued on through the crunchy, fallen leaves.
As we climbed higher and higher towards Fullhardt Knob, the sun sank lower and lower in the sky. We stopped for just a moment to catch the last sight of it before it dipped below the distant blue ridges.
And then it began to get dark in a hurry. We were hiking as fast as we could and I had to get out my headlamp to see the trail. We had hit the five mile mark and still there was no sign of the shelter.
It was very dark now and we were so over the climbing. At Mile 5.4 we finally saw the turnoff for the shelter! When we arrived, we discovered we had the place to ourselves. Quickly, we put our tents up, got things situated inside them, and made our way over to the picnic table for dinner.
The sounds of the crickets and other insects were so loud, and they seemed to get louder as we crawled into our tents for the night! Although we were at the top of a small mountain, the night was warm with a pleasant breeze, and I knew we’d have no trouble falling asleep after our long day.
Total miles: 5.46
Total elevation gain: 1,854 feet
No comments:
Post a Comment