Goodbye GoGo

All right, it is Monday May 13, and I’m in my tent at the Rice Fields Shelter and campground, which is on sort of a bald. It's a nice grassy field at the top of a ridge. It’s not nearly as nice as Beauty Spot, but it’s a lovely spot nonetheless. This morning, I woke up at Woods Hole Hostel. I was planning on having a very large day today, so I wanted to get everything done before breakfast at 7:30.

The breakfast routine was the same as it was for dinner. Stand in a circle. Say your name or your trail name. Say what you're thankful for. I’d already said at dinner the night before that I was thankful for having some dogs around, so I had to pick something different this time. I think I just said something about being thankful for a good breakfast before my big miles today.

It really was nice having some dogs around for a while. If you go back and look at the photos from yesterday’s post, the husky is a retired sled dog named Megan. And the dog with the little stumpy tail is named GoGo. I liked GoGo the best. And then the Shiba Inu belonged to one of the staff members. He was kind of a strange guy, so I never learned the dog's name, and the dog never really wanted anyone to touch it, anyway. I hung out with GoGo the most.

Breakfast was baked French toast, oatmeal, scrambled eggs, more bread, some cut fruit. So I again stuffed as much as I could into my mouth and then got my backpack on and left Woods Hole by about 8:30. And again, it's a 0.4 mile walk from there up to the trail, and my plan for the day was to hike 18.7 miles to the Rice Fields Shelter. So off I went.

I sort of approached the day like you would a very long road trip. You know, focusing on just a little bit at a time. I tried really hard to not focus on the fact that I needed to get to Rice Fields, and the main reason is water. Water in this section of the trail is very scarce. The entire day, I literally saw one water stop before I got within a reasonable distance of the campsite. So you kind of have to hike long distances.

So after you get down off the peak, there's a road that goes into Pearisburg. And a lot of people choose to get off the trail there for the night, or they’ll just go to town to resupply and all that fun stuff before getting back on trail, but not stay over. Since I'm going to be off the trail for a day or two, starting Wednesday night, I didn't need to resupply, so I just kept going.

I ate lunch where the trail came to the road, and then I had another 7 or so miles to get to Rice Fields Shelter. And one thing I wasn't expecting was that the Appalachian Trail actually goes alongside the highway for about a mile. And I guess it's that way because there's a rather large river to cross, though don't know which one it is. [Wife note: Apparently, it’s the New River.] And then there's a big rail yard, so there's just a little bit of intersection with urban life on the trail, which is kind of neat. It's kind of weird, but I sort of like it. And then you start hiking back up the ridge.

Probably around mile 14 or 15, I saw someone ahead of me, just off to the side of the trail, and they were crouched down. As I got closer, I saw that they were pulling up their pants! So I quickly spun around to face the other way and give the person their privacy. And then I heard Misneach laugh and say, “Oh, Rob, you’re so polite! I don’t have any shame about these things!” She was slack packing that day. I seem to bump into her a lot when she's slack packing, though not usually like that.

Not Misneach

Fortunately, my day ended up going pretty well. I did the 18.7 on the trail, plus that 0.4 from Woods Hole to the trail, so over 19 miles with a full pack, which is the definitely the longest I've done since I started my hike. I did an 18 going into Weary Feet Hostel. So over the past three days... let's see... 18, 19... that’s 37. So over the past three days, I've done more than 53 miles.

That’s a big uptick, but I don't think I want to try to maintain this pace, or these kinds of distances, though the trail in Virginia seems to be pretty friendly relative to what was in North Carolina and Tennessee. So if the trail keeps going like this, then, you know, anything from 15 to 18 miles in a day seems to be perfectly reasonable.

When I got up to Rice Fields Shelter, all the young kids who hike very quickly were already here. They were playing hacky sack and singing songs and doing all sorts of goofy things, which was fun to see. I’m definitely the oldest person here by a good 20 years, but that's okay. It’s nice to see those guys just hanging out and having a good time.

And now, unfortunately, it’s starting to rain already. It wasn't supposed to start raining until the morning, but I guess, what's the difference? I'm going to have to pack up a wet tent regardless. But I’ll figure all that out in the morning. For now, I’m in a nice dry tent in a grassy field. So I’m pretty comfortable, and I hope to get a good night's sleep.

[Wife note: Click here to see a video from Trail Days 2024 by my second-favorite thru-hiker, Ranger. In it, she interviews two of the people Rob has met on the trail this year and mentioned a few times. One is Harmonica (at time point 3:15), and the other is Phoenix/LSD Guy, the hiker who was offering people sticks of butter (at time point 3:41).]