Day 51- Thursday, April 15, 2021

Today is Dad’s birthday. He would have been 93 years old. Happy Birthday in Heaven Dad 😇! I think of you and Mom every day...




The morning temperatures were in the low 40’s and it’s not expected to get much warmer than around 50° with partly cloudy skies... near perfect hiking conditions. Since most of our hike is uphill today cooler temperatures will be welcomed. 

Today we are hiking from Walker Gap (571.2 NoBo) to VA 42, O’Lystery Pavilion (558.2 NoBo) for a total of 13.0 miles.  

We started hiking at 8:00 am. 






The Knot Maul Branch Shelter.


Looking at our next climb.




I think someone dropped their wrapper... 🤭. Remember “Leave No Trace”!

















Crossing the Lick Creek. The footbridge was washed out in 2020... another pandemic inconvenience. Trail angels left watershoes for hikers to use to cross the creek so Jim used them. We were aware the bridge was out so I brought my own... who’d ever think Trail Angels would take care of it 😉.



We met another couple thru-hiking. Their trail names are “ Sticks & Ranger” who are from Texas. Ranger completed his first thru-hike in 2005 and now is doing it again with Sticks! What some will do for  love 😍🤔. They started from the AT Acess trail at Springer Mountain on February 24th.  They started with  “Bug”; she’s about 2 days ahead of them now. 

We found the entrance to a Forest Gnomes tree home.... nice patio! You will find these all along the trail.  Hikers building these for good luck 🍀  for themselves and other hikers . 




Stairways up the trail...














There was a forest fire yesterday between VA 625 and Chestnut Ridge which the forest ranger estimated burned 27 acres. You can see how it didn’t burn pass the trail-this was due to the 2” rain earlier this week which washed all the debris from it. The funny thing is, we may know what/who caused it as the firefighters we talked to today said there wasn’t any recorded lightning strikes in the area; but we met a couple hikers camping in the area yesterday who were moving south where the fire occurred, and we didn’t meet any other NoBo hikers, just happened to be smokers 🤔. That’s all I’m going to say about that... 





Views from Chestnut Ridge looking south.




At the Chestnut Knob Shelter. That’s “Cricket” with his dog Tex.  



Turtle Power and Tex. They have  the same beard 😂.




Views from “Chestnut Knob Shelter” looking north.



Turtle Power switchbacking along the trail below me. 

We finish hiking at 4:20 pm under partly sunny skies. The temperature was 50°. The weatherman was actually spot on... hopefully will be the same tomorrow.


As we were driving out we saw a turkey near the road... I started calling and it jumped a fence and walked right down the road towards us looking for his “girlfriend”. Jim never saw a love struck turkey before  😂  🦃.

Till next time... Happy Hiking  🥾 

😋

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