Hands Up!

Okay, tonight, I’m at the Bears Den hostel, which I think is around mile 1,006. And relative to yesterday, today was ten times more interesting. I woke up this morning at the Rod Hollow shelter. Fortunately, it was dry overnight, so packing up my tent was much easier than it had been yesterday, when I was fighting the mud.

I was out on the trail by 7 o'clock, which is good. I’m kind of two for two now for getting out and getting going by 7, and today had some significance, because it was the beginning of the infamous “roller coaster,” which is a stretch of trail in Virginia that’s at least 12.5 miles long, and it’s a series of pretty significant — yet totally pointless — ups and downs.  I mean, totally pointless. Someone actually told me that there are conspiracy theories out there that they routed the trail unnecessarily over all these hills just so the area could have a little bit of notoriety.

Basically, for the roller coaster, you go straight up for a while, and then you go straight down. And then you go straight up again for a while. And then you go straight down. And up, and down, and up, and down, and so on until you want to punch someone.

For hikers, getting into a rhythm of sorts is really helpful. So, you know, in the Smokies, you would have an extremely long climb, but it would be just that — you climb for a couple hours at a time, so you just kind of settle into it. But on the roller coaster, you can’t get into the zone. You're huffing and puffing up an incline for 40 minutes, and then trying to baby your knees going down for 30 minutes, and then huffing and puffing back up for another 45... anyway, you get the picture.

But the noteworthy part of the roller coaster is that it crosses the 1,000-mile mark! And when I got to the 1,000-mile mark, I ran into Gloss and Low Key, who I’ve mentioned before. They’re Mennonites and cousins and are hiking the AT together. Gloss got her trail name because she never looks dirty. I mean, ever. And none of us can figure out how that's possible! And I don’t think Low Key’s heart rate ever gets above 45 beats per minute. He's just perpetually chill. Both of them are very, very nice people.

Before long, Gentle Yeti showed up, too, and we all enjoyed some time together at the 1,000-mile mark. Gloss kindly took some pictures for me with the sign.

While we were there, a guy named Strider came through, who I met at the shelter last night, but he’s not going to be in my hiking life for very long, because he hikes very quickly and does long days, even though he seems to be about the same age as me. He’s just much better suited to hiking, clearly. And then a guy who hiked the trail about 20 years ago showed up, named Cliff Dancer, and he’s doing some training hikes now because he's going to do some of the PCT [Pacific Crest Trail] later. So that was a nice moment, with all of us there.

After that, it was just kind of grinding out the remainder of the day until I could get to the Bears Den hostel, which meant today was only a 10-mile day. I arrived at about 12:30, and lo and behold, someone was on the grounds at Bears Den, giving out some quite generous Trail Magic. His trail name is Long Distance Man, and he hiked the AT in, I believe, 1998. Now he has a tradition that on Father's Day, he does Trail Magic with his son and his daughter. He had a lot of things that hikers tend to crave — a bunch of vegetables, a bunch of watermelon and apples and oranges and other fruit. That was a very, very welcome spread.

Note the bird nest on top of the disco ball

I sat down and hung out with Long Distance Man for a little bit, and then a guy named Big Tuna showed up. He’s a traveling nurse, so he’ll do some nursing gigs, save up some money, do an adventure, then get another nursing gig or two, make some more money, do another adventure, and so on. He’s a really great guy. Very interesting guy. And then Yukon Cornelius came in. And he got that trail name because he kind of looks like Yukon Cornelius from the Rudolph the Reindeer stop-action Christmas shows from the ’70s — only younger. And then Allegheny showed up. He's from the Allegheny Mountains, thus the name. And a couple other people just kind of drifted in and out.

After the Trail Magic, I was able to get into the hiker house. You can't officially check in until five, but if you figure out their secret code, you can get in early. They put a clue on the door that says to figure out the number of miles between two points. Turns out that it's 34.1 miles, so the code is 341. All of you out there, you don’t have to figure it out now. You’re welcome.

So, I was able to take a shower, which was great, and then I put on some not-so-disgusting clothes and headed out to check out the Bear Chase Brewing Company, which is a 0.7 mile walk down the road. Unfortunately — in my opinion, anyway — it was more of an amusement park than a brewery. I was sort of expecting to go and sit at the bar and have a quiet beer and maybe talk to someone about the brewing process, but this was five lines of customers and a live band and, literally, a petting zoo and an axe throwing station and food trucks everywhere, in addition to their own kitchen. To be fair, maybe it’s not always that over the top. It could have all been for Father’s Day, I suppose, but there were probably 500 people there. I mean, it's a beautiful setting, but it was a bit chaotic for my taste.

Nevertheless, I got a pilsner and went to a food truck and got a barbecue bowl with brisket, smoked mac and cheese, coleslaw, and beans. It was outstanding. For “dessert,” I ordered a hazy IPA. They had a soft serve vendor that I was planning on hitting up, but they had a line of about 25 kids, so I abstained. That whole complex must just print money.

After that, I made my way back to Bears Den and officially checked in. I was able to do some laundry, and I had a nice chat with some people who are doing section hikes.

I found the poster for this year’s thru-hikers that we’re all supposed to sign and sent a pic to S. of where two of the people she’s following on YouTube signed. [Wife note: Soap and Gadget.]

When she asked me if I’d signed it myself, I told her there wasn’t any space, and she responded that there was space — next to Gadget — so I went back and signed it to make her happy. [Wife note: 😁]

There were a couple of dogs running around, but when I asked what their names were, I couldn’t understand what the people said. I asked a second time and still couldn’t understand, so I just let it go after that. The Great Pyrenees was super friendly and kept coming around, which was a nice bonus.

Bear’s Den is a really iconic place along the trail, so I'm glad to be staying here. Also, the “hiker package” includes a free pint of ice cream! Tomorrow, I've got 12 miles to do, and that should be pretty straightforward. Certainly not as hard as the roller coaster!

[Wife note: From a July 27, 2023, Washington Post article: “YOU ARE ABOUT TO ENTER THE ROLLER COASTER,” announces the sign, laminated and stapled to a trail marker. “ … HAVE A GREAT RIDE.”

Then come 13 miles of rolling hills — 3,800 feet up and 3,720 feet down, to be exact. Stretched between Ashby Gap and Snickers Gap in Northern Virginia, the Roller Coaster was the solution to a lot of concrete-walking.

A half-century earlier, the A.T. had been bumped onto a 15-mile stretch of highway shoulder. Then, in the 1980s, trail officials began working to purchase a sliver of land that felt wilder.

At only 1,000 feet wide, the corridor the Park Service eventually purchased didn’t leave much to work with, but it would have to do. Chris Brunton, a hiking enthusiast and member of the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club, was called in to help reimagine the route.

“To be honest with you, it was not a well-laid trail,” said Brunton, who goes by the nickname “Trailboss.” “We were confined because the Park Service bought only so much land. We did the best we could within that narrow corridor.”

The resulting trail was so hilly that out-of-breath hikers started calling it the Roller Coaster.]