Pictures!!

Here are photos from beautiful Virginia!
Lots of Blue Ridge walking, and, some unique trail features (see below.)

The ridges allow a chance to see weather brewing, like here on the right.










This is where we ended for the last set of photos - here again, Trail Days in Damascus, VA.
This is a Hennessy Hammock - Rob's lightweight "tent"! Below, Rob and friends enjoying Trail Days.
After Trail Days - some work to maintain the Appalachian Trail.

Repainting blazes was one of the easier jobs Rob did for "Hardcore" trail maintenance.
The reward for "Hardcore" volunteers - a free night at Kincora Hostel!
Cooling off on 5/28!

Human and canine visitors rest in the shelter's loft - 5/31.
The fabulous "Home Place Buffet" in Catawba, VA! The one they slowed down for!

You read in a previous post by Rob/Bigby about "Rusty's Hard Time Hollow" - an experience he was glad to have. Below, a picture of the hostel, and of Rob with Rusty himself.

One way to cross a river in Virginia.
How to cross a fence in Virginia!
BIG TREE
Another way to cross a river:

Almost there!!

Looks like Rob is losing his fear of heights...

and fear of falling things!
The Trail is a place for contemplation...

and asking those important life questions, such as: Which way??

HAPPY TRAILS CONTINUES!

Greetings from lovely and scenic (and surprisingly URBAN) Front Royal, VA! There's a lot to talk about, so I'll try to get everything down before we dash off to eat as much food as humanly possible.

After Waynesboro, we dashed into Shenandoah National Park. And by "dashed," of course I mean did a 7 mile day and hung around at a shelter all afternoon. From there we ventured into the beautiful park itself. I took off, splitting up from my friends to do a big mile day to get to the planned rendezvous point with Dad. The park immediately lived up to all my expectations: the treadway is smooth, flat, wide, and well maintained! Also, I was interrogated by day-trippers (What do you eat? How heavy is your pack? etc.etc.etc.) and saw a bear in my first 2 miles in the park... classic Shennies!

I did 20 quick miles to get to one of the park's huge car-friendly campgrounds, where I grabbed ice cream at the store and waited for dad. He showed up after a long, tough hitch (see below) and a bunch of road-walking, his feet already torn up. However, we still did 6 more night miles to the shelter, where we met the gang (including Sideshow and Shanty) and distributed cookies.

Dad and I had some great hikes through the park for the next days, rising very early and spending two nights stealth camping and one more night in a shelter. He seems to be a reliable good luck charm: when he arrived the weather became beautiful (cool, sunny, breezy... perfect!) and the wildlife came out! We saw a copperhead ("charmed" by Shanty) and at least 4-5 bears... by far more than any other section.

On Dad's last day out, we hiked into Skyland for a delicious breakfast at the touristy lodge, and said our goodbyes. It was definitely tough seeing him go... he had been out long enough for us to develop a fun routine of early mornings, good hiking, and evening tea even! Exacerbating the homesickness was a voicemail from the Bonfire crew (namely Cecca) saying hello. The thought that I could be AT Tobin's that evening (Monday) by just hopping into the tired old volvo and napping through a 500 mile drive was very trying.

To get through the lonely time (a bunch of my buddies had passed us as we mosied through the park) I decided to bust big miles and catch them. Much to my surprise and delight, a single 27 mile day was enough... that night I found Tater and Dirty at the 2nd shelter just as Dad's good luck wore out and the rain returned. I slept (or tried to, next to Binjali's snoring!) and this morning, Tater and I popped out 13 miles to get to town. We lucked out and got shuttled into town, and are now settling in for a shower and meal in preparation for the easy hop into Harper's Ferry and the unofficial halfway point of the AT... just 45 miles until the 1000 mile mark!

Lots of love... missing all my Gbury folks like whoa.
Rob
Bigby

Just reposting Dad's comment so it appears more readily... it was great having him out here! Real update to follow...

What a great hike! Perfect weather. Relatively flat terrain. The hitch hiking wasn't bad, though not as easy as some would lead you to believe. I think I walked/paced several miles just waiting for a ride. Being in the back of a pick-up was a first for me.After a short hike, I met some of the regulars. What a great group to hang out with! Though sideshow's video of him holding the rattler was unexpected. And Big Shanty does have a knack for finding snakes. (don't sit near him if you get the chance)Saw a couple of bears up close. And those SNP deer are more like pats than wild animals.Food was the favorite topic. Calories, the more the better. I saw Rob stop for lunch then join me minutes later at the lodge for another full meal. I think he left the table hungry...I look forward to joining Rob again when he's closer.And, did I mention sore feet ... I should say very sore feet, yeah and my feet were sore.

Dave's Taste of the AT Continued

Here are a couple of photos sent by phone - the mountain view photo sent yesterday as a very small file, and a better quality pic sent this AM at six-ish - Dad K looks a bit stunned but Rob looks like he's at home! Dave sends text messages from high spots, and I know they got to Hightop Hut, 15 miles from the Loft starting place, yesterday - then further on to camp somewhere near the Rte 33 intersection. Last night's last report: cookies and pepperoni bread were all gone, lightening the load! Hope Dave slept at least a bit last night!

Dad K Hits the Trail

It must’ve been very early this morning when Rob's dad Dave left Glastonbury to head for an undetermined location outside Shenandoah National Park. (I'm writing from the Cape.) Dave headed out with sort of a plan, by Mom K standards - first things first he was well-equipped with food including several dozen of my famous "Chocolate Mint" cookies and firm instructions these were to be a form of trail angelship. Also jerky, pepperoni bread, and various other dried hiker things. Dave called from Rte 81 in Pennsylvania, and was still planning to park "somewhere" in Luray, VA and hitch into the park and down to Loft Mountain, at milepost 79.5, and meet Rob there. We'd poked around user groups on the internet enough to know that you should be able to hitchhike in the park OK ... but the parking thing seemed a problem. So today I learned that if you call the "general headquarters" number during business hours, and select the right choice from the recorded menu, you get to talk to Crystal who answers all questions, checks maps, gives advice, and presents you with the welcome news that one can park one's car anywhere at all in SNP, and leave it a few days! (Has to be an actual parking space, or well off Skyline Drive; and you have to include that info on your backcountry permit. No problem! Crystal updated the permit with the car info for us.) Thank you Crystal!! So the current plan is: Dave parks at Skyland Lodge; milepost 41; and sticks out his thumb on Skyline Drive, heading south to Loft Mountain, 38 miles down. I expect he got to SNP at around 1ish. Got a call from Rob at about that time, he was lounging atop a mountain, having a leisurely lunch - but then decided it was time to get moving if he was to meet Dave upon his Loft arrival! So now I'm waiting, waiting to hear they met up, then I can relax a bit. And get back to washing the windows. Til then, here's a Rob-and-Dad picture from the archives:

Dave and Rob, somewhere in the White Mountains (N.H.); May 2005

PostScript: I received a text message from Dave at 6 PM: "Met Rob. Off hiking." Have a great time in beautiful Shenandoah National Park guys! Share those cookies!

Ahhhh trail-y goodness continues.

As of now, I have achieved Waynesboro, Virginia. 850 miles down (848.1 if you're specific), only 1300 something to go! The hike into Waynesboro was definitely intense, with 4 back to back to back to back days with 2500 foot climbs! One of these climbs, a mountain called 3 Ridges, was probably one of the hardest stretches of trail we've hit yet. We climbed from 997 feet above sea level to over 4000 feet, in just a few short and strenuous miles.

We also had an incredible night and morning at Rusty's Hard Time Hollow, a classic AT institution.

After Rusty's, I hiked into Waynesboro at the fastest pace I've pushed yet... 22 miles in 7 hours.

Through the Shenandoah, then Harper's Ferry (Washington DC adjacent... leave me voicemail if you want to visit!) and OUT OF VIRGINIA in 10 days or less!


Take it easy
Rob

ps- hey Murphys, hope the summer starts out strong! Play plenty of frizzers.

Greetings Friends!!

Well it's been an exciting week or two to say the least. A whole lot has happened, I will try to get as much of it down as I can before the public library in Glasgow, VA is forced to close due to the incredible odor of myself and a fellow thru-hiker seated beside me.

After Pearisburg, some amigos and I became aware of a serious situation in our schedule. We were on track to hit the somewhat famous trail town Catawba early in the week. Now, usually this would not be an issue (actually we usually don't even know what day of the week it is) HOWEVER, Catawba is famous for one reason only... the Home Place. The Home Place is an incredible All You Can Eat, family style restaurant that is only open Thursday-Sunday. The seriousness of this reality forced us to adapt an entirely new plan: The Catawba Crawl. The Crawl was 4 strenuous days of very light mileage and lots of slacking off/side trail walking undertaken by myself, Candy Bar, Tater, Dirty, Blackfoot, G, Boognish, Jake (aka Dr. Vic Nectar, Climatologist) and Jules, the most terrified dog in the world.

While the short days sometimes drove us to temporary insanity (example: one night at a shelter we found a scrap of iron in the fire pit, and decided to forge a sword out of it. It turns out forging swords with rocks is not as easy as you may think), the juice was definitely worth the squeeze. At the homeplace, a dozen hikers packed in beside well dressed families and gorged ourselves. They just...kept..bringing...food...out...

It was amazing.

After the feeding frenzy, we all collapsed on the restaurant's lawn and contemplated our futures. Tater, Blackfoot, Candy Bar and I decided to stick with Laura, a hiker friend of Tater's who had been forced off the trail by a broken ankle and had returned in her cast to give us trail magic and rides. We went to Laura's hotel room in Roanoke where we watched cartoons and ate ice cream.

After that, we actually hiked. Honest! Including a few big days, and some high mileage night hikes that were a lot of fun.

There has been a ton of thunderstorming lately, and I have had the good (?) luck of being at some interesting high elevations to watch these storms blow in on me. Yesterday, I was actually running off a mountain with DIME SIZED HAIL falling on me! I have never seen hail so big! It legitimately hurt. Combine that with one very close lightning strike, and you have never SEEN a guy hike so fast.

Anyways, this morning I crossed the historical James River, and am now in Glasgow after a pretty easy hitch into town. Once I finish my errands and grab lunch, it's on to Waynesboro, the southern boundary of the Shenandoah National Park. After a fun week in Shenandoah, it's FINALLY OUT OF VIRGINIA!! HUZZAH!!

Missing you all lots, send messages!

Rob
"Bigby"

I know, this is mind blowing, right? Three posts in what... two days? Well, it's just been a funny few days, that's all!

As of now, I am sitting at (you guessed it) yet another computer. Being at a computer two back-to-back days is pretty strange, and my typing seems to be getting a bit faster than it was before.

Yesterday, I hiked out of Pearisburg at about noon, after a delicious lunch at Hardees. However, that lunch didn't seem as awesome when I hit the big uphill back up to the ridge outside of Pearisburg... suddenly 2400 calories of cheeseburger, fries and milkshake was like a giant anchor dragging me down.

To make matters even more interesting, a scant 4 miles into my walk the weather took a dramatic turn. I was amazed to see how quickly the storm came up at high altitude, with swirling winds and rumbles of thunder. I essentially ran the last 2 miles to the shelter, knowing that the broken woods and meadows at high altitude would be a bad place to be stuck if a big storm hit. I dashed across the last field just as the rain picked up, encouraged by Walker, Mellow, and Sir Privywinks who had already taken shelter.We bunked down in the shelter, where we met another interesting character... "CaoBoi" was one of the contestants from Survivor 13, the one where they split up teams by race! He was an interesting, if very talkative, dude.

The storm was all it promised, complete with a strike on a barb wire fence about 20 yards from the shelter.

From that short day, we walked out about 13 miles to get here, to The Captain's house right across the river from the AT, where we are just in time for the big annual "Big Time" trail magic bbq. Since another thunderstorm is rolling in, it looks like we are in the right place at the right time!

All the best
Rob

ps - hows THAT for posting on the blog, jared??