35 and Break

After taking our first zero at Ralph and Cinda's house, Danae and I finally felt well enough to hike again. We hit the trail Thursday without our packs. This is the day that my parents picked us up. Without our packs we were able to hike our longest day, 35 miles!!! We hiked from 6:45 to 5:30. We then sat by the road and waited until 6:30 for my parents to pick us up. It was rainy and cold and we were shivering uncontrollably. My loving family came to the rescue with blankets at hand. We then drove back to Ralph and Cinda's house to get our packs. We also took a quick shower which helped us warm up. Finally, we are off the trail for a few days and able to get some rest. So far we have been able to spend some quality time with my family and watch my brother graduate. Sitting on those hard bleachers for a couple of hours is almost as difficult as hiking. I think it is because my butt has less cushioning. I almost forgot, we also went to the Grantsville circus yesterday and made monster cookies. I brought the dough with us to the circus for a snack. Need to get that sitting cushion back. 

Tomorrow, Sunday, we will be able to see some friends and family at church before we go to Winchester for my cousin's graduation party. We will then get back on the trail either Sunday evening or Monday morning. We will start where we left off, route 33 in the Shenandoah. We should be able to make it to Harpers Ferry WV. This is the "half way point" on the AT. 

There are three places where people often quit the trail. Neil's Gap GA, Damascus VA, and Harpers Ferry WV. Those who quit at Harpers Ferry normally quit because they are bored. This might be us. The last serval weeks have been monotonous. We hate the idea of quitting, but we told ourselves at the beginning of the trip "we won't continue if we aren't having fun". I cringe at the thought of continuing the monotony for 3 more months. There are also several other factors. Finances, job deadlines, weddings to go to, and other summer activities to do. After this being said, Danae and I will try to slow down this next week and try to enjoy the trail a little more. We will see how this next week goes and then make a decision. This has been something Danae and I have been discussing for the last couple weeks. 

Sorry, I don't have any pictures. My phone died and I finally had to get a new phone. 

Sick and Slow: Round 2

We are currently sitting at the side of the road waiting to be picked up by Danae's uncle Ralph. Ralph and Cinda live just a few miles from Skyline Drive and they invited us to stay at their when we get in the area. We were planning on making it further north today, but today Danae got very sick and threw-up twice already. Instead of doing 25 miles, we made it 15.  We feel ba because this means that Ralph has to drive a little further to pick us up. Between me getting sick and Danae getting sick, our plans didn't work out as well as we wanted then to this week. 

However, yesterday was a great day. We woke up and I felt much better. After walking 7 miles and taking our morning break, we heard a man in front of us making weird noises. At first I thought he was crazy. Then I realized it was just one of my crazy uncles... Willis. I should have known. If you read our previous blog, you know that Willis and Greta saved us when I was feeling really sick. Yesterday they decided to hunt us down on the trail and give us trail magic. They took us to Golden Coral and then gave us some candy bars and protein bars for on the trail. We thoroughly enjoyed spending time with Willis and Greta and we are very grateful for the trail magic. I need to go to doughnut fest more often to become as witty as my uncle. I'm sure Greta will disagree with me on that last idea. 

After getting back on the trail yesterday, we were able to slackpack for 5 miles since we dropped our packs at a road crossing 5 miles ahead. Normally slack packing is easier and helps you go faster, but we had a lot of food in our stomachs weighing us down. At the end of the day, we made it 5 miles south of Waynesboro.

They are trying to fatten us up! And we love it. 

   

Sick and Slow

Well the last few days we feel as though we have been making very slow progress. Which in a way is nice since it gives our bodies more of a break, but it's also frustrating since were used to getting a lot more miles in. Several days ago Daniel had a pretty bad headache, but he downed some ibuprofen and we kept on. Yesterday morning he woke up feeling pretty misrible but after waiting an extra fourty min past our normal getting up time he insisted he wanted to get ready and go. We tied the mileage from our very first day on the trail, making it 10.5 miles by around 11. By this point Daniel was feeling to awful to keep going. (Nausia, headache, etc.) Fortunately since it was a Saturday there were a lot of day hikers out and we decided the best thing to do would be to get a ride to where we would have cell service. We met a wonderful family (Jason, Joy and their four kids) who offered us a ride to where we would have cell service and then invited us back to their home to get showers and eat delicious food! It worked out perfectly, as Daniel's uncle and aunt ( Willis and Greta ) were somewhat in the area and very willingly came by to pick us up and take us back to Harrisonburg where we invited ourselves to crash at Daniel's cousins (Felix and Roxy) for the night. Sorry if that was a very long and confusing sentence :) Felix and Roxy were wonderful,  fed us more delicious food, and gave us soft beds! The plan was to just hang out till Daniel was feeling better and then get back to the trail. This morning Daniel said he was feeling good enough to try hiking again, so once again Willis and Greta gave us a ride back to the trail right where we had left off. We decided to do a shorter day since we got a late start and since Daniel was still not feeling a 100% better. We made it 11.5 miles and arrived to a lovely camping spot. Ideally this is where we would have camped last night. However one thing that I'm continuously learning is that usually when we try to make plans, they don't work out anyway, and it's best to just be flexible. Since I'm such an organized person and enjoy having every detail planned out this can be hard sometimes, but I do believe I'm getting better. :)

-Zae

Jason and Joy and family. 

Getting back on the trail thanks to our wonderful aunt an uncle, Willis and Greta 

Rhododendrons are blooming! 

McAfee's Knob and Tinker Cliffs.

After Dragons Tooth we came to some of the most beautiful overlooks the trail has to offer. McAfee Knob and Tinker Cliffs. After waking up, we only had a 2 mile hike to McAfee Knob. It was a beautiful warm morning. See picture below. The only complaint was that the sun was still near the horizon and we could not take good photos. Afterwards we hiked several more miles until we took our lunch break on Tinker Cliffs. In the afternoon we resupplied in Daleville VA at a Kroger. This time we got orange juice and icecream for our special snack. After eating our snack, we hiked 2 miles to rt 11. There we were planning on hitch hiking into Troutville where there was a park and a volunteer fire department that had free camping, showers, and laundry. Before we could even try hitch hiking, a couple came up and asked us where we were going. We told them and then they invited us to stay at there house for the night. Homer and Theresa through hiked in 2002 with there 2 kids. They spend a lot of their free time going out on the trails to keep them clean and maintain them. We got our showers, did laundry, and then watched a movie with them. They told us to make ourselves at home and they gave us popcorn to go with the movie. Best trail magic so far! 

The last 2 days we followed the Blue Ridge Parkway (BRPW). We cross this road about every 5 miles. This makes hiking easier since we follow the ridge. Today (Thursday) we were away from the BRPW and had some huge elevation changes. We started at 3,073 ft then went down to 678 and then back up to 3,372. Due to the difficult terrain and us needing a break, we only went 18 miles today. Just in case you are curious here is the mileage we have been doing recently starting with today's. 

18.2, 24.1, 23.5, 19.3, 24.5, 21.9, 21.5,17.2, 21.4, 27.6, 22.9

Tomorrow (Friday) we will resupply in Buena Vista VA. We should be able to resupply enough to get us to the Shenandoah.

Dragon Tooth

Today was a wonderful day. The temperature doesn't go above 70 and tonight it will stay around 50. This morning we woke up early to get in 24.5 miles. Whitey and Chilly were still asleep when we left. We didn't see them for the rest of the day. Actually, we saw zero thru hikers on the trail today. Danae and I are currently in a shelter by ourselves. Normally they are full with 8-12 hikers. Even though we didn't see any thru hikers, we saw a bunch of day hikers at Dragons Tooth. It is a very rocky mountain with steep cliffs and a wonderful view. We actually stopped there to eat our lunch. Within the 2 mile "touristy day hiker section" we saw about 20 people. 2 of which have us trail magic. The first guy gave each of us an apple and a protein bar. We saved those for supper tonight. The second guy, Ian, gave us a total of 4 Cliff Bars and 4 Clementines. We ate there while talking to Ian. Within a couple of minutes we realized we had a lot in common. He got married 9 months ago, he is a christian and he knows about Rosedale Bible College (he went to Cedarville which is near RBC). He even figured out why I am called Shazz without me having to explain it. I told him my real name is Daniel and then he made the connection of Daniel's Babylonian name. He's the first to do so. After making small talk he prayed with us and we were on our way to the shelter. Meeting Ian was great and we hope to hear from him soon. Tomorrow we will be in Troutville and Daleville VA to resupply. 

Lunch

They have ladders to get up to Dragons Tooth. 

Day 40

Well we have a lot to catch ya'll up on. I'll start back with Tuesday. Tuesday was exciting because we did our longest day yet! 27.7 miles! This was not the plan from the beginning of the day though. We were planning on around 20, until we went about 10 miles and were told that there were no more water sources for the next 18ish miles. It was a very long day and we decided that we don't like doing that much in one day and should never do it again! Over all it was a good day and we made it to camp around 7 and were able to end the day with a giant pot of oatmeal. Wednesday was a great day because we were able to do shower and laundry! We had already hiked 22 miles and decided to go .5 miles off the trail to a hostel so we could get cleaned up. We were then planning on camping near by. However the owners insisted that we stay, eat supper with them, stay in their bunkhouse, and they would cover the extra cost! How could we refuse :) so we stayed and enjoyed a delicious meal with about 15 other hikers and were able to sleep on a soft mattress that night. We woke up to pouring rain and were even more glad we had accepted the invitation to stay, since we didn't have a tent to take down. After enjoying several cups of coffee we set off towards Pearisburg which was around 11 miles from the hostel. We were planning on re-supplying on groceries and and also stocking up on calories at a pizza buffet. Despite the rain we had a very enjoyable hike into town and were offered a ride to the pizza buffet without even trying to hitch a ride! After eating way to much pizza we sat there for a while letting our stomachs settle. By then the rain had stopped and we made our way to a Food Lion right down the street. After we finished shopping there was still no rain and we started thinking that we might get lucky and be able to hike the 6 miles to the next shelter without getting more wet then we already were. No such luck! About 15 min after leaving town the rain came. The first 3 miles were not bad, but then it started getting quite cold and windy and the rain only seemed to get harder. I'll admit to being a huge wimp when it comes to being drenched and cold and having no choice but to keep walking. We eventually did arrive at the shelter, only to find it full. We then took on the task of setting up our tent in the rain. Our hands were so cold by this point that it took longer then normal to get everything snapped into place, but we eventually got it set up, the water sort of wiped out, our clothes changed, and into our sleeping bags we dove!  The next morning (Friday) we rang out our wet clothes from the day-before and  hung them from our packs hoping they would dry throughout the day.  The day went fairly well and ended even better when we found 3 cinnamon raisin bagels in a bag by a rock. Daniel immediately downed one, we used another one to clean the last of our Mac and cheese from the pot,and then Daniel downed the other one. Calories! This morning we were very excited when we woke up to the sun and no wind! We once again hung our still damp clothes from our packs as we started out. They finally dried out, but stink like none other. We made it 22 miles today. We are at a shelter with two other guys tonight named Chili and Whitey. We have been seeing them throughout the last few days so it was fun to hang out with them tonight. 

-Zae

The Hostel

Day 34

Today is Sunday and Mothersday. We still do not have cell service. I, Daniel, was sure I would have service in Marion VA where we went to Walmart to resupply. After resupplying a guy offered to give is a ride back. We didn't even need to hitchhike!  After we got back to the trail we sat down and ate our cookies with milk. I was able to borrow a hiker's phone to call my parents. He had Verizon. I have ATT. I realize that ATT isn't so good down here. Anyways, I talked to them for only 5 min since I was borrowing a phone. Just long enough to tell them where we are at and happy Mother's Day. We had a difficult time walking after eating our cookies. Normally we average 3 mph, but I'm guessing we were going 1.5 mph for the last 5 miles. 

We are getting better at buying food. We are finding cheaper foods (with the same or more calories) and more compact foods. Oatmeal is a good example of something that is cheap/light/compact. 

We put in good miles the previous 2 days. 22 miles and 24 miles. 2 days ago was pretty neat. It was like walking through a zoo. In the morning there were some cows in the path. In the afternoon there was a wild pony in the middle of the path. And then there was a long-horned bull in the middle of the path. See below for pictures. As usual, we saw snakes, squirrels, groundhogs, etc. 

Yesterday we got amazing trail magic. A hikers mom came and met him at the trail with 2 large bags full of mcdonalds biscuits, orange juice, and Krispy Kreme doughnuts. I got 3 of each. About 10 minutes after that we passed 2 day-hikers going the other way who have us Snickers and told us that there was soda in their truck, 1 mile down the trail at the parking lot. After the our normal breakfast and the trail magic, Danae and I figured out that I consumed over 3,000 calories before 10:00 AM. And I'm still loosing fat. If you want a diet plan that is guaranteed to work, try the AT trail. Bring as much food as you want, but you gotta carry it. 

Slow and Steady

It's funny how a 17 mile day is now "easy" for us. When we first started this trip we struggled to get 15 miles in. After drinking a half gallon of milk, eating off-brand Oreos, 11 chicken patties, and Pringles, we slept very well last night. I couldn't believe how much I ate. I was more shocked that my body craved more food after eating all of that. After waking up today, we packed, got free coffee from the hostel and went on our way. That is another thing I crave often. Coffee. It was so good to sleep in knowing that coffee would be ready by 7:30. Because of the wonderful drink, we got a late start. We still made it to camp by 4:15. We don't know what to do for the rest of the day. We already have our tent setup, a fire going, Danae already mended a small rip in her pack. I guess we will just lay here and relax until tomorrow. Looks like we will have to do 20-mile days so that we don't get bored. 

When we were in Georgia everyone told us that Virginia would be easy. It is a little bit easier so far, but the real easy terrain comes after Waynesboro. That will be a few weeks. As of now we still have 5,000+ ft elevation to climb. As we get closer to friends and family who agreed to host us for a night, we are looking forward to slack-packing and getting big miles in those days. Slack packing is when we only take enough supplies for 1 day and leave the rest at a friends house. This allows us to carry one 7-pound backpack instead of two 30+ pound backpacks. 

I tried to call my mom today to wish her a happy birthday, but had no service. I'll try again tomorrow. Happy birthday mom! Love you!

Damascus

Well the last few days we have been movin right along and also seeing some more of Gods beautiful creation! On Monday we saw a breathtaking waterfall and river that we followed for a few miles! Part of me wanted to sit myself down and just take it all in for an hour or two! I'm just constantly amazed by the glorious things that our Lord creates! On Monday we were able to walk 18.5 miles. We had walked 17 by around 3:00 when we arrived at a pretty little beach. Since we didn't have that far to go we decided to just hang out for a little while. It was very relaxing and we were even able to partially clean ourselves off a little in the extremely cold water. On Tuesday we decided that we would get up early and try to get in a longer day of hiking. We were on our way by 6:38 and it felt simply wonderful to hike in the cool of the morning since the last few days have been getting quite hot by the afternoon! We hiked about 15 miles before stopping for lunch around 1:00. After convincing ourselves to get moving we got back on the trail, only to come across trail magic about 30 min later!! We were very happy to say the least! We plopped ourselves down on a log and enjoyed a cold soda and some snacks and then once again convinced ourselves to get moving. After hiking several more miles we were met on the trail by two paramedics and a cop on fourwheelers. We asked if everything was ok and if they needed help with anything. They said everything was fine but then proceeded to tell us not to stay at the next shelter. As we continued moving we came up with numerous scenarios about what may have happened at the shelter. We arrived at the shelter and not seeing anything unusual we continued moving. We hiked a total of 25 miles before stopping for the night. We ran into several other guys and asked if they knew anything about what had happened at the last shelter. They said that apparently there was a "crazy guy there who was doing meth". Mystery solved, it wasn't someone who was dying of dehydration or cancer, just a crazy guy doing drugs I guess. Anyways, today (Wednesday) we once again got up early and hiked the15 miles into Damascus Virginia by 12:30. It's a cute little town and we were able to find a hostel where we could camp, shower and do laundry for $6 a person! Thank you Jesus!  It is now only 2:30 and it feels amazing to have the rest of the day to simply relax and give our feet a break! We plan to walk to the dollar store shortly to re-supply on food and hopefully find ourselves some oreos and milk:) 

- Zae 

Goodbye TN. Hello VA

The hostel in Damascus 

Trail Magic

Goodbye North Carolina.

Saturday was a cool day and we walked 18 miles. During our walk we came across about 20 AT volunteers who were Fixing the trail and painting white blazes on the trees. There were many beautiful views since we climbed several bands. In the morning we came across some trail magic. A guy have us an apple, soda, and KitKats. He told us that his wife, Jersey Girl, was hiking the trail ahead of us. We met up with her when we got to camp. We talked for a while and she told us that her husband would give us trail magic Sunday, today, also. Sadly we woke up too early and got to the road before he did. No trail magic today. On a positive note, we went 22.8 miles today. There were not many mountains today. Early this morning we climbed a bald and it was very windy. We were almost blown over. We are hoping to be in Damascus VA by Thursday to resupply on food.  

We were on the NC and TN boarder for the last week or two until today. We will now be in TN until we get to VA

It doesn't look big on this picture, but it was about 1.2 miles from where I took the picture to the top. 

Lunch by the waterfall. 

Snake!!! Right in the middle of the trail. 

Erwin TN

Thursday morning we woke up with only a six mile walk into Erwin to resupply on food. We made it to the outskirts of town by around 10:20 and were surprised to find about 15 other hikers just hanging out at a hostel right off the trail. We then realized that there would be a shuttle going the two miles into town around 11:30. The shuttle would take people to the center of town where there would be a dollar store, IGA, and most importantly an all you can eat pizza buffet!  This all sounded great except for the part where we would need to sit there for an hour waiting and for the part where the shuttle cost $5 per person. After discussing pros and cons we decided to start walking the two miles into town and hopefully get picked up. We figured the worse thing that could happen would be that nobody would pick us up and we would arrive in town around the same time as the shuttle. We ended up walking a little over half way into town before getting picked up. We were then able to get our shopping done and arrive at the pizza buffet only slightly after the rest of the hikers who had come in the shuttle. After stuffing our stomachs as full as we could stand we had to sit there for a while before we felt we had the ability to walk again. We then hitched a ride back to the trail. The best part of our morning, apart from the pizza, was that we saved $10 dollars by not taking the shuttle!! :) We decided we would hike about 10 more miles and call it a day. Friday morning we woke up to chilly weather and quickly packed up and began hiking to warm up. We had one bigger up but apart from that the day was decently easy and we felt like we made good time. We had decided we would hike 10 miles to a road crossing and then stop for lunch. Whenever we see that we have a road crossing coming up we always hope that we will get trail magic, especially on the weekends. We were not disappointed. As we came up to the road we saw a big white van and a group of hikers sitting around eating. We were quickly invited over by Rob who told us to grab a soda and as many snacks as we wanted! We very excitedly took him up on his offer and were soon contentedly sipping cans of soda and eating granola bars, honey buns, cookies, apples, candy and more, we figured that we easily each ate over 1,000 calories. Rob was such a nice guy and kept urging us to take more and then gave us his number in case we ever needed anything. He said that he is at that road crossing almost every day and usually takes the last few hikers of the day home with him so they can shower, do laundry and stay in a nice bed. So cool! We want to be like him when  we grow up:) anyways, we hiked about 6.6 more miles before calling it a day around 4:30. Even though we were able to go 16.6 miles it felt like a really short day especially since we quit a little earlier than usual, but we figured that our bodies would appreciate a long relaxing evening.

-Zae

Rob and trail magic

Big Butt an Big Bald

Yes. We did climb a mountain called Big Butt and a mountain called Big Bald. Climbing Big Bald today was a challenge. Not because of the long uphill, but because of the hurricane-like winds. A "bald" is a mountain with no trees. While we were walking on the bald, the winds gusted so hard that we were nearly knocked down. Ask Danae, this is no exaggeration. Despite the wind we have been very fortunate with the weather. The forcast showed rain and thunderstorms the past 3 days, but it has only been cloudy and windy. It rained once during the day when we were already eating lunch in a shelter. But that lasted for 30 minutes. It also rained the previous night, but we have kept dry. Speaking of the rain, it is starting to rain again. Luckily we are in our tent for the night! Tomorrow we will refill our food bag in Erwin TN. We only need food for 50 miles (4 days). Like always, we will treat ourselves with something while in town. Franklin it was Pizza, Gaitlingburgh it was lunchmeet milk and cheese, Hot Springs was Ice-cream. Any suggestions for this time or the next???  We are thinking about Oreos and milk. 

We forgot to mention the sketchy store we went to a few days back. On the trail we saw a piece of vinyl siding with writing that said "Mom's store" with an arrow. We ignored it until we got to a road and saw in the distance a hand-painted sign the said "Mom's" and an open sign. We decided to check it out. The building looked condemned both outside and inside. As we went in I noticed there were no lights, a bunch of junk stacked up in the right side of the building, and a woman smoking a cigarette. I asked her if she had any cold drinks. She pointed to the back where there was a refrigerator. Danae got a Power Aid and I got a Yoo-hoo. It was totally worth the $3.50 to drink the cold drinks and experience this sketchy store. I wish I took a picture, but my phone was dead at the time. 

Big Bald

This is the type of area where my dad tells me not to camp at.