Brown Mountain Milestones

I’m currently at the Brown Mountain Creek Shelter and camping area at mile 807.5. And today, I hit two milestones. The first was crossing the 800-mile mark, and the second was completing my first 20-mile day. But more on that in a little bit.

I woke up this morning at the Stanimal’s hostel in Glasgow, Virginia, and I was happy to have spent the night in a garden shed in the backyard. I think it was the only private space in the whole hostel. Two people tented in the yard, and as I think I mentioned yesterday, the house was completely packed. There were two bunk rooms with six people each in them, plus two semi-private rooms. And Stanimal’s actually rents the couch and the recliner to sleep in, too. So I think there were 18 or 19 people in this 1,500-square-foot house, not including the people running the hostel. And just one bathroom, though they do have a few porta potties outside. So, it’s definitely close quarters here, but the place has got to be making some money.

Every morning, starting at 6 o'clock, they have all-you-can-eat pancakes. And I guess there’s really nothing extraordinary about the pancakes, other than the fact that there are a lot of them. That’s really the most important part, anyway. But this morning, they made strawberry and banana pancakes. I ate my fill, and had a little coffee. And I completely forgot to take a picture of the pancakes. So my apologies to S. and anyone else who might have wanted to see them. I still need to get better in that regard and take more pictures of stuff.

At 7 o'clock, there were two cars just packed full of hikers — nine of us in total — headed back to the trail. Stanimal’s actually has a very active shuttle service. The cars this morning were transporting regular thru-hikers, but they also have a big slack packing business. Several people had made arrangements to slack pack that day. It was tempting to get in on that, but in the end, I'm glad I didn't.

So I hit the trail. Had beautiful weather. The first several miles were uphill, but at least I got to enjoy some really nice views. And at mile nine, I reached the top of Bluff Mountain, which was the highest point of the day. Bluff Mountain overlooks the town of Buena Vista, and anyone who went to Washington and Lee University [Wife note: Like me!] is definitely familiar with that town.

I stopped and had a snack up there with several other thru-hikers, one of whom was Judge, who's from the Netherlands. Steady and Highlighter, who are from Maine, were also there, and the three of us had a conversation about how your hike could be going well, but then it only takes a second for something to go wrong, and your time on the trail could end in the blink of an eye. You know, you could slip or fall or burn yourself or get bit by something, and you just never know. You just have to be careful and hope for the best.

Another guy was there whose trail name is Zen Chemist. He’s from Florida, and he's doing the AT in sections. Today was his last day on trail, finishing up a five-week stint. So we were all just hanging out and enjoying the nice weather, and this couple from Charlotte who were day hiking started asking us some pretty silly questions. For one thing, they asked us whether we were able to find water fountains along the trail. I don't even know if they were kidding. They certainly didn't seem like they were kidding.

At that point, Judge said that she was going to continue on to the Brown Mountain Creek Shelter, which was another 11 miles away. I thought that was a bit ambitious, but her plan is to get to Waynesboro by Sunday. Apparently, there's an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet there on Sundays that’s not available on Mondays, so I’d say she's properly motivated.

So she took off, and I figured I’d just find a place to camp at some point along the way. But then I got to thinking that if I pushed some miles today and did a pretty decent day tomorrow, then I could get to where S. was going to pick me up on Sunday on Saturday afternoon instead, which would give me another day at home. And I mean, that was all the incentive I needed.

I typically like to leave last from the shelters and campsites, because I don't like having people following me. I get kind of self-conscious about people coming up behind me on the trail, but that's neither here nor there. Anyway, I’d gone only about a half mile, and I came up on Steady and Highlighter, sitting down in the middle of the trail. Highlighter had taken a bit of a spill and scraped up her hands and her face, which felt really weird coming right after our conversation back at the shelter about how quickly you could get taken off the trail. I basically started doing what the unknown hiker had done for me when I fell, and we went through a sort of checklist to make sure she was okay. Once I’d established that she was, I continued on down the trail.

From that point forward, I was just laser focused on making the 20 miles, and thankfully, the terrain got pretty friendly toward the end of the day. I mean, the last two miles were an absolute gift — very even and not overly steep. The trail heads through Brown Mountain Creek, and there are some signs indicating that in the early 1900s, freed slaves had built a whole community here. And as you walk along the river, you can see building foundations and other evidence that people had lived there. And that was a really interesting way to pass the time, just looking for different clues and remnants of that old settlement. 

Being slow like I am, I arrived at the tent site about 6:30, which meant that there were pretty slim pickings for spots. I eventually found one that was quasi-level, did my usual camp chores, and ate some dinner. I consumed as many calories as I could, given that I still have a couple days left on the trail and need to save some food.

Now I'm in my tent and ready to get some rest, because tomorrow is a massive climbing day. Whoever said that the AT levels out in Virginia was completely lying. I feel pretty good about 800 miles, but I can tell you that the difficulty level has not actually decreased yet. I'm still looking forward to that happening. Rumor has it that once you hit Shenandoah National Park, things even out, but I still have a couple days until that happens.