After the cookout and fun from the night before, we slept in through the heat of the day. I don’t do very well with hot temperatures, so I decided it was too hot to hike, but we all agreed to night hike.

The day was really enjoyable. Everyone got to do things they had been meaning to do, like reading or talking. Surprisingly, there is usually very little time for activities other than hiking, eating, and sleeping. The change in routine was a necessary one.

By the time evening rolled around, we had had meaningful discussions with a lot of hikers who passed through, surprised that we were still there. Some of them decided to stay. Rock and I cooked a community dinner of Beef Stroganoff (Without beef though) and a rice side. After, we had a pep talk and some stretches, and by then, we were 15 strong.

We started marching at dusk, shouting out “Nighthiiiike!” Even during the night, the temperatures were in the sixties. We made a good haul, most of it uphill, and fell asleep… quickly.

At dawn, we all woke up (slowly) and cooked some pancakes for breakfast, among other snacks. We started hiking (Safety and I), but it became hot and very humid. I am a little worried about summer because it will bring more heat. With the heat, I sweat more, and bugs stick to my skin. I will get some water, but in obtaining the water, I sweat it all out. Sunburn, heat exhaustion, and so on. I know I will make it through the summer, but it will be a challenge, not your average Michigan summer.

After a lot of uphill in the heat, we stopped at a large shelter. It was just in time, as rain started to fall. The weather forecasts storms for the next week. We shall see. I have been meeting a great new crowd of people, people I really enjoy spending time with. One hiker knew some sign language, so we were signing and talking about it.

If the rain holds off, it will be a nice hike toward town today.

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!

There is always more than one path. There is always more than one way to hike. Even when hikers have different paces, we sometimes end up at the same shelter, and we will all end up in Maine.

We reached a spot in the trail where they had created a detour because a bridge was out. Hikers are called “purists” when they hike every inch of the trail, pass every white blaze. The dilemma was (especially for the purists): to take the original AT trail or the detour? One is officially the AT, while the other is currently the AT. The blazes had been changed over to the detour and all.

I am not a purist. I try to hit all the blazes, and I don’t think I would try to skip any great portion of the trail, but I wouldn’t backtrack for the sake of passing a white blaze. I am out here to hike the trail, but the main reason is to really enjoy the experience.

I was hiking with two of my favorite hikers: The Rock and Safety. We ended up taking a detour of our own. Why not add a little extra fun and adventure? The distance was about the same, but it was a nice walk on a beautiful day.

We enjoyed hanging out at a shelter with a pine forest behind, prime for hammock hanging. Our plan is to wake early tomorrow and hike a longer day. We may run into wild ponies tomorrow, which everyone is pretty pumped about (horses carrying our packs, riding horses, jousting with trekking poles).

Another day of hanging out with hikers, you might think I would get sick of it. I don’t. There is always so much to talk about. Today was actually justified as a productive day in town, as I finished resupplying, did laundry, and finished some errands.

We made plans to rent bikes and bike the “Creeper Trail,” but the multiple bike rental places all decided to close sometime around noon. It would have been fun, but there will be more adventures.

The Rock decided to organize a potluck, which was a fantastic idea. Rather than all spending half of our savings on more meals at a restaurant, we all chipped in for the potluck in the park. Of course, in the last three days of forecasted 100% rain, the only time it really rained hard was during the potluck. We had a roof though, so it was fine. There were more calories than could be counted, and we talked about everything, but mostly about food : bread, sourdough starters, wine, tea, coffee, gardens, greenhouses. It’s always a pleasant surprise when someone shares many interests, especially if they are knowledgeable.

After a while, Forest pulled me aside and said, “We need to leave tonight, or we’ll never get out of here.” I had already mostly decided that, as the rain was stopping, it was 9:30pm, and I had nowhere to sleep. So as the potluck died down, we got everything together and hiked out into the woods. Back to the land of beauty, peace, and no rules. It’s good to be back.

The weather here has been horrible! Thunderstorms and tornado watches every day… I’m mostly joking, but the forecast showed 100% chance of rain and storms for most of the day. Right now, for instance, is a 100% chance of rain.

So there’s no rain right now, but it’s threatening! There are a lot of hikers in town, and almost all of us are waiting out the weather. I have been taking care of some things while in town, but I have also been having a great time talking with hikers and playing rummy.

Despite how much fun it is hanging out in town, a lot of us are surprisingly eager to get back into the woods. Is that odd?

Ah well. The hostel is paid for another night. I will enjoy my time here while I am here.

Today was all about hiking. We got out of bed (hammock) at 2:00 am… OK, more like 2:30, but we got an early start. Night hiking is more fun with other people because you are generally less paranoid about bears or your headlamp batteries dying.

None of that happened of course. Instead, we were able to enjoy the quiet of the early morning, followed by a beautiful sunrise as we traversed open pastures.

The day became warm fast, which was our main motivation for starting so early. I began hiking with y down jacket and started to sweat after about five steps, so I was hiking with a tshirt since I started. Not only did it heat up, but the water sources have been steadily farther apart and more difficult to reach. Sometimes, I go get some water, only to sweat that much out in the process of getting it. I stopped to break at a shelter and rested in the shade with Safety and Shakes. The next water source wasn’t for 8.5 miles, so I drank 2 liters and filled up one to go. Soon after, I was peeing clear, which was a good sign, so I set off. My tired feet protested, but they coped pretty well. I hiked with Safety most of the way down. Soon after that water source, we went downhill into town. We were immediately encountered by locals, who told us some cool places in town. My suspicion was confirmed: this is a weird trail town, and it will probably be pretty fun.

Oh yeah! Passed into Virginia! The trail goes back and forth between Tennessee and North Carolina quite a bit, but now it’s three states complete! The next state will take a while.

Hiking this morning felt pretty good, but I have had other things on my mind recently. Some of the hikers I have been talking to have told me of their August deadlines, to finish the trail in time for school to start. This made me think that perhaps I should go a bit faster, but also – what will I do after the trail?

In theory, living on the trail for the remainder of my life sounds best, but some other options have some appeal too. I do have some more time to think it over, but I was able to think about it more clearly than I ever have. Distance gives perspective.

After a few miles, I came across Tatiana and her father by a lake! They have me a real chocolate chip cookie, and after the pie yesterday, I feel back at home, with all the delicious baked goods. Of course, the pie recipe had to be modified a bit, with mostly peanut butter instead of butter in the crust, and the crumble topping was mostly Cocoa Puffs, but the end result was delicious.

As they hiked on, I decided to go for a swim. I hadn’t seen a lake in some time, and I thought it might make me feel at home back in Michigan. It did, as my legs turned numb as I waded out into the water. Woo! Vey cold, but I managed to knock out a shower and some laundry at the same time.

The rest of the day was hiking in the sun, one of the warmest days so far, and with the fewest solid water sources. Some people were pretty dehydrated, so I was forcing down a few extra liters. We were all pretty best when we arrived at the campsite for tonight. Sitting around the fire and horsing around helped boost morale. I’m here with Toto, Shakes(peare), Safety, and Young Gun. The big joke is “how flat” the trail has been recently. Supposedly, this stretch is the flattest on the AT, but you would never know if you didn’t overanalyze the elevation synopsis. I was either hiking uphill or downhill all day today, except when I wasn’t hiking. There was a hike off the trail to a water source that was half of a mile and a steeper incline than the trail. Ah well.

But we are close to Virginia! The town of Damascus is 29 miles away, and our plan (devised around the campfire) is to wake up at 2am and hike the 29 miles before noon, to avoid the 80 degree afternoon weather. Whether or not that happens, time will tell. And not much of it, so I must sleep.

We made pie last night! From scratch of course, but we had to improvise a little.

Today was a lazy day. It was raining, so I chose to avoid hiking in the rain, when it is supposed to be so nice for the next couple of days.

The hostel that I am currently at is really special, a legendary place on the AT.

The fee here is only a $5 donation, and so much is offered for that money. The people are really cool, and I am enjoying relaxing here. With so many people talking about cranking out miles, it is nice to take it easy for a little while.

I don’t want to get complacent though, so I plan to head out onto the trail tonight and get a few miles in. That way, I will already be in hiking mode tomorrow morning, but the time reading and such here has been nice.

Here’s the quote of the day:
The Rock was looking at a Backpacking magazine at the hostel. He says, “$400 for a sleeping bag. Does it sleep for you?”

Today, I mostly took it easy. As my earlier poem suggests, I drank tea and listened to the woods. I talked with various hikers as they passed by, set up my hammock, and read some. This lasted until the late afternoon, where I decided to start hiking.

There was talk of rain, and conveniently enough, there was a hostel 6 miles ahead. I hiked those miles very quickly and arrived in time to enjoy the company of other hikers.

One of note is Shakes – short for Shakespeare – who I had heard of, another hiker who was writing poems in the logbooks. He inspired me to write a sonnet today.

Though I wish I was sleeping in the woods tonight, I will be glad to be here in the morning, listening to rock music on the radio.