Butter? What?

When I woke up on May 3, I was dreading getting out of bed for two reasons. One was that I had spent the past few days with S., which was absolutely wonderful. I was going to be sad to see her go. Sad to see Thistle go, too. The other reason was that I’d been enjoying the luxuries of a house with plumbing and a comfortable bed and internet, etc., for a few days, and I wasn’t exactly eager to be giving that up. But all good things must come to an end, and I needed to get back to the trail.

Anyone ever seen this stuff before? It’s like a Sprite, but with vitamins.

S. cooked me a really nice breakfast, we got everything packed into the car, we cleaned up the Airbnb as much as we needed to, and then we were off. We headed back to the part of the trail where she’d dropped me off the previous day to slack pack. This time, I’d be heading north, away from Damascus, in my normal thru-hike direction.

S. dropped me off at about 11 o'clock, which would normally be a little late to be getting started hiking for the day, but it was fine, because I wasn't planning on doing that many miles that day. We said goodbye, and I did my best to not run after the car and jump on the roof and head back home to Charlottesville.

[Wife note: Thistle did NOT want to leave him.]

But I definitely felt much better after a few days of great food, good rest, and some wonderful time with S. So I headed my merry little way north. After just a few miles, the trail crosses another road where there’s a popular parking area for people who want to day hike Mount Rogers, which happens to be the tallest peak in Virginia.

And there was a guy there who had thru-hiked the trail in 1971. He had a van and a couple Tupperware containers full of cookies and other things for hikers, like ramen packets. I certainly didn't need to take any supplies with me, because I already had an overstuffed food bag, but I talked to him for a little while and ate a few cookies and bumped into a few people, including Ziploc.

A bunch of us decided to hang out there for a little while and soak up some of the nice weather, but eventually, we saddled up and headed up the mountain toward the Thomas Knob Shelter, about four and a half miles away. It was a fairly uneventful hike, though it did involve a fair amount of climbing. The weather was actually great, but we could see gray clouds on the horizon. That was definitely a motivator to pick up the pace a bit so we could get to the shelter before it started to rain.

We got there probably around 3 o'clock in the afternoon, which would normally be a pretty early stopping point, especially since there were actually some more camping options north of the shelter that weren't very far down the trail. Under normal circumstances, I would have definitely kept going, but I'm glad I didn't, because shortly after we got to the shelter, the rains came, and they just kept coming at intervals. It would rain for 20 minutes and then stop, and then rain for 20 minutes again and stop. But it was kind of fun to sit in the shelter and just watch people passing through or showing up to stay there.

A couple arrived that I hadn’t seen for probably 150 miles, Mowgli and Cheeks. Cheeks got her trail name when she was passing through Hampton, Tennessee, and a dog came out of nowhere and bit her in the butt. So, people immediately started calling her Cheeks.

A little later in the afternoon, a guy named Phoenix rolled through. He has a bit of an interesting story. He's now known as “the LSD guy.” He's a big-mile hiker, younger guy, really nice and kind and enthusiastic. Basically, he was born in Guatemala, adopted as a child, brought to New York, and that’s where he grew up. And at some point, I don't know how old he was, but I think, you know, definitely as an adult, he said he took some LSD and then moved to Vermont.

So it seems like the LSD influenced him to move to Vermont or something. I chose not to follow up on that, though. Phoenix hikes 25 to 30 miles a day. He's in super good shape, and he has a reputation of carrying a lot of butter with him. So he showed up at the shelter and just started offering everyone a stick of butter, which was kind of strange. But he only stuck around long enough to eat and then moved on.

Then another guy came through, named Extra, and I think the Appalachian Trail is the third and final portion of his Triple Crown. And he looks the part. The guy's a major athlete, he carries almost nothing with him, and he eats only trail mix. So Extra is an interesting character. But he came in, had a few bites to eat, and then he moved on, too.

After those of us who were going to stay the night there had all eaten and gotten settled, these two older guys with big white beards showed up. Normally, the etiquette is that if you come to a shelter and it’s kind of full and everyone seems to be settled in for the night—and this is especially true if you show up there pretty late—you go pick a tent site, rather than trying to squeeze in. But these guys just came in and kind of stomped all over the place and made a fuss.

And then, one of the guys started smoking cigarettes. I just kind of kept to myself over on one side of the shelter, but there were some tense words exchanged among some of the other shelter occupants. This was actually only my second shelter stay of the whole trip so far. I'm wary of staying in shelters for all sorts of reasons, and one of them is having to deal with all the people who come in late and try to make room for themselves. So that just kind of sealed the deal for me.

Overall, it was a pretty good first day back. I saw some interesting characters. Saw some rare weather. Got some decent views. And by tomorrow, I’ll be ready for the next stretch of hiking.