Alright, so I skipped a few days. But since this is the first time I have had reception in the past few days, I decided to condense to one post.

Waking up the next day, we had decided to get some miles in. It seemed a good idea, since we hadn’t been for a little while. After a long day of hiking, we ended up at a shelter near Mt. Rodgers, the highest point in Virginia. One of my friends teased other hikers about bear-bagging, as if bears wanted to climb to the highest spot in Virginia.

For most of this past week, I have been hiking with my crew, now known as “The Lost Boys.” They are quite spontaneous and a lot of fun to hike with. We ended up waking up the following morning and leaving in different groups. I started to feel a little dehydrated and low on energy. Even wild horses couldn’t drag me away from the trail though. In fact, they encouraged me to stay.

After we horsed around for a while, we kept hiking. We did another longer day, but around mid afternoon, we were cut short by some trail magic. A crew had set up camp with meatball subs and plenty of magic for everyone. Also, I saw some old friends!

We stayed until dark but decided to night hike out to get a few more miles in. After cruising through some miles, we arrived near a shelter. It was a beautiful, clear night, but there were few places designated for tenting. Looking down at the trail, I said, “This spot is pretty flat.” So we slept on the AT, waking up to hikers passing us around 6:00.

That next day, the lack of sleep an dehydration kicked in a little, and it was one of the harder times for me on the trail. I was feeling queasy and generally low on energy. After ten miles or so, I took a nap at a shelter, and woke up… the next morning.

It took me a little while to feel back to normal, but I am feeling better now. In the meantime, we stopped at Partnership Shelter, near Marion, VA. The town of Marion had a lot of fast food, but I was more interested in the grocery stores, stocking up on fresh fruit. We also got some wardrobe changes to generally increase morale. The shelter was a nice one, with a shower and all. We spent time hanging out, playing whiffle ball, and doing logic puzzles.

We left this morning, and had a beautiful hike, though it was a hot day. We hit some excellent trail magic, most of which was in an old one-room schoolhouse.

Passing through Atkins, we stocked up on hot dogs and such and hiked on. Tonight was an excellent cookout around the campfire. It’s a great feeling to be sharing a wonderful time in the woods with wonderful people, so I’m glad I can share it with you too.

I’m looking forward to what is to come, despite the hot weather! GAME on!