Day 59 - Sunday, May 9, 2021

Happy Mother’s Day to all my readers who are Mom’s 🌹!

We survived our first night camping on the trail. Overnight temperatures was around 50°and it was very comfortable sleeping in the back of the truck. Only issue is if you have to get up in the middle of night to go to the bathroom. You can’t just jump out of bed and walk into the bathroom. 

Camping is a whole other thought process to take into consideration and will take a couple days to fine tune. Everything has to be packed up and stored away as we leave the campsite everyday and sometimes it will even mean camping at a new location. We have to allow time to do our normal morning routines plus now all the camping chores then make it to the trailhead in time. I think today went pretty smooth taking into account that I did give Turtle Power special consideration as it is Mother’s Day 😂.

Today we are hiking from Damascus, VA  Laurel Ave & Shady Ave (470.9 NoBo) to McQueens Gap USFS 69 (459.4 NoBo) for a total of 11.5 miles. We are also crossing the Virginia /Tennessee border today; completing the commonwealth*. Virginia has the most AT miles of all the 14 states that it travels through. 

We began hiking 9:30 am under sunny skies; the temperature was 50° and it warmed up very quickly.




I’m wearing my new hiking shoe gaiters... I was tired of stopping several times a day to pick leaves, stones and sticks out of my shoes.  I’ve noticed many hikers who wear hiking shoes/sneakers use them for all the reasons mentioned. Even though they are not waterproof, they also provide some protection if you inadvertently stepped in water over your shoe as well. 



We met “Meisha” & “Dolly” at the Abingdon Gap Shelter. They began their thru-hike from Springer on March 29th. They didn’t have much to say as “Meisha” was preoccupied getting water at the spring. We passed each other on the trail again at lunchtime. We have noticed that a lot of the “millennial” hikers are lacking social attributes or Turtle Power scares the bejesus out of them 🙄 😂. I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt and going with the later... 












The Virginia/Tennessee State Border.



Having lunch at the VA/TN State Border.



Well, this looks like this answers the 10,000 year old rhetorical question... I guess they do 🤭. Right up there with... is snow white and/or is the pope Catholic  🤔. 







Hiking through downtown Damascus.


Turtle Power’s lifetime ambition coming to fruition ... again it’s Mother’s Day; enjoy TP!


We finished hiking at 1:30 pm. The temperature was 77°.

In closing, it saddens me to write in my journal how my life time best friend and hiking buddy Jim lost his Mom today. I remember how she always “put up” with our antics and shenanigans when we were younger... and we actually thought we were pulling the wool over her eyes 🙄. 

Till next time... Happy Hiking  🥾

😋 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 163 - Wednesday, September 22, 2021

Image
Looks like we may get wet the next couple days but short of a hurricane we will be hiking to stay on track for an October 8th completion of our thru hike 🙏🏻.  Today was not quite a “Nero” but it was a coincidence that it was shorter aligning with our slack packing parking 😉. We hiked  from  PA 645 (1194.0 NoBo) to Pass Under PA 72 & Across PA 443 (1183.2 NoBo) for a total of 10.8 miles. We began hiking at 9:00 am under threatening skies. Pre-gaming thanks to some Trail Magic left in the parking lot. Since before I have been on the trail I can’t recall the last time I drank a real Coke or any soda for that matter; it’s nearly the norm now as you want to consume all the carbs you can 🤭. And it was too early for the PBR 😂. Crossing the old canal at Swatara Gap. Going underneath I-81. The trail wasn’t as rocky today… and I’m not complaining 🥵. Turtle Power is doing his part to save the environment as he has a new aversion of killing every Spotted Laternfly  he ...
Read more

Day 95 - Friday, June 25, 2021

Image
There are definitely pros and cons when you compare sleeping in a shelter vs sleeping in your tent. Some pros are:  you will stay drier in inclement weather in a shelter (notice I didn’t say “dry”,  just drier or not as wet 🙄) , you can break camp quicker in the am - not packing up a tent, you have more room (if shelter isn’t crowded) and a biggie is -  you can take a chance and hope to always use the shelters and not pack a tent optimizing base pack weight (this could also be the #1 con if you had to sleep outside in the rain w/o a tent 🤭) just to name a few.  Some cons are: sleeping on a hard floor - which I believe is the #1 con against shelters (getting a good nights sleep is key to rest and rejuvenate your weary body), could be noisy, the little varmints 🐁 sneaking around in the middle of the night,  some hikers don’t have a clue about maintaining their “personal” space or they just don’t care, on occasion you have to deal with some “personalities” (I ju...
Read more

The Final Chapter

Image
My favorite scene on the Appalachian Trail near Petites Gap/Highcock Knob, VA, March 26, 2021 (Day 31). Reaching Springer Mountain, the Southern Terminus, June 13, 2021 (Day 90). Summiting Mt. Katahdin, the Northern Terminus, August 25, 2021 (Day 131). Completing our thru hike at Harpers Ferry on October 9, 2021 (Day 174). In the Beginning … This adventure actually started about two years ago in the fall of 2019 when Jim asked me about how I’d like to hike the Appalachian Trail with him. I gave it a good 2 seconds of consideration before I wasn’t politically correct at all in my answer telling him NO…LOL. I was just getting over an injury with my right Achilles tendon as I ruptured it a couple years prior and long distance hiking was the farthest thing on my mind to do.  Now lets back up about 57 years when Jim and I first met. His dad owned and operated a local campground, Coldbrook Campsites in Port Leyden, New York. Port Leyden was also the home of my father and he knew Jim’s da...
Read more