Bunny Buddies

So it’s Tuesday, June 11, and right now, I'm at the Pass Mountain shelter and campsite, which is at around mile 945 and change. Today turned out to be a longer day than I’d expected it to be. When I woke up this morning, it was quite chilly. I’d camped at a decent elevation, close to the edge of a cliff, so it was pretty breezy, which was good. But the rain that came through overnight really did a number on everything. My tent was wet. All the vegetation was wet. The ground was wet.

Thankfully, it had stopped raining by the time I got up, but I had to pack everything while it was still soaked. There wasn't a lot of space to have breakfast, and I was really wanting to find some actual plumbing, though I ultimately had no luck on that front. So I grumpily packed everything away and headed out without breakfast and decided I’d just figure something out later.

I hit the trail, and lo and behold, maybe 10 minutes later, I came across one of the sections of the Big Meadows campsite. In the distance, I could see a beautiful beacon of light, otherwise known as a restroom with a flush toilet. And I really didn't care that I wasn't a paying customer. I basically bushwhacked my way from where I was on the trail directly to the restroom, and life was good again.

After that, I found a campsite with an empty picnic table and sat down to have some breakfast. After my very grumpy start to the day, things turned very good, very quickly, which was much appreciated. The next probably 10 or so miles were pretty uneventful. There were some nice views. The clouds came and went. But really just not a lot to report.

I then stopped at a nice picnic area just off of Skyline Drive, hoping to find an outlet there so I could plug in my backup battery for a while, but they didn't have one. That's okay. I was able to dry out my tent, though, and have some lunch and talk to S. for a bit, since the reception hadn't be good enough for us to talk last night.

At that point, I was trying to figure out how to divide the miles up evenly over the next couple days to get into Front Royal. I'm going stay in a hotel there, and there's no point in getting into town too early. And once I left the picnic area, I really only had about three miles to go to sort of hit my mileage allocation for the day, and I planned to start looking for spots to camp after that.

A little bit beyond the picnic area, I passed by the Skyland Resort, which I hadn’t known was even a thing. There were some horse stables, and I could see the lodge, and the AT just kind of wraps around it all. It looked pretty interesting, and I’m thinking it might be something fun for me and S. to check out at some point after I’m home again.

Anyway, there was a nice climb right after the picnic area, and usually, after a climb, you can find some good camping areas near the cliffs, because the top of the mountain tends to be a little flat. But when I checked the area out, it was very cramped quarters, and the spots that were available were similar to where I’d tented last night, and I wasn't anxious to repeat that.

So I decided to keep moving, but then there was literally nowhere to set up my tent. No open spaces. No previously camped-in areas. I got back down to the road and was hoping I could tent near a rest stop on Skyline Drive, which would give me access to flush toilets and outlets and all that good stuff. But again, there was just nowhere to tent. That meant I needed to make my way to the next shelter, which was Pass Mountain.

In total, I ended up hiking a little over 18 miles today, though I’d only been planning to hike about 15, but that just makes dividing up the mileage to Front Royal easier. Hiking extra miles pays dividends. This area is roughly 0.2 miles off the AT, and when I got here, no one else was here except a bunch of bunnies that were pretty tame and didn't seem to mind me being around.

I got my tent set up and started prepping dinner, and two hikers came in. One’s named Joy, and the other is Ghost Pepper. And interestingly, Ghost Pepper is the guy who was just crossing the Blue Ridge Parkway when S. was dropping me off to slack pack, and she offered him a Coke and some peppermint patties.

And now here we are, about a week or so later, and he's rolling into the same campsite. Joy and Ghost Pepper and I sat down to eat our dinners together, and it was really nice. They’re literally the first thru-hikers I’ve interacted with since I got back on the trail on June 7. It’s very strange to go that long without seeing other thru-hikers.

As we were finishing up dinner, another hiker named Birdie arrived, and she’d just done 26 miles, which means she started the day a little bit behind us. Joy and Ghost Pepper stayed at Big Meadows last night, so the three of us hiked pretty much the same distance today. They got a little bit of a later start, but they're much faster hikers than I am. Joy likes to hike big miles, and she considers 18 miles a leisurely day. I guess it takes all kinds. HYOH and all, right?

Tomorrow, about 7.5 miles into the day, there’s a wayside with a cafe, and I plan on stopping there and having a nice lunch. I’m hoping for good weather and another good day.