June picked Slingshot and me up at 7:30. I’d had a burrito from Sheetz for breakfast as well as a factory made chocolate muffin from the hotel. Slingshot, who is a big fan of Sheetz, had French toast sticks.
We started hiking together but within about two minutes I let him go on ahead because he’s quite a bit faster than me. I didn’t have a plan other than to try to do some decent mileage.
The trail enters Shenandoah National Park right after Rockfish Gap where June dropped us off, and the Virginia Skyline, a sightseeing road similar to the Blue Ridge Parkway, runs close to the AT for much of the trail’s time in the park. There wasn’t much traffic noise because it was a weekday with rain in the forecast.
Around noon Checklist texted me and told me people were headed to Black Rock Hut (it’s a stone-walled shelter, not sure why it’s called a hut). That would be 20.5 miles of hiking, which seemed like about the right amount.
A little later I met Pipsqueak who was walking south. Somehow I failed to notice he’s 7 feet tall. He had decided to aquablaze part of the Shenandoah section of the trail (aquablazing means paddling the river rather than hiking, in a rented kayak), but the water level was very low, and he swamped and lost all his electronics and food so he was heading back to Waynesboro to replace everything. He seemed to be in good spirits considering the situation
Around 2 it started to rain, but not that heavily. I managed to stay pretty dry with just my rain jacket and umbrella. It rained on and off until about 5.
I didn’t see any other thru hikers on trail, but when I got to the shelter there were lots of people I didn’t know, along with Slingshot. Two Esses, Lone Star and Hootenanny arrived half an hour after me, and Checklist arrived around 8 because he took a 1 mile side trail for a view for his YouTube channel. There are about 10 of us squeezed in the shelter, and it’s now dark out and thundering and raining. Hopefully we’ll stay dry.
Mile 865.3 to mile 885.8=20.5 miles
Wildlife!
The trail passes through quartzite which means lots of acid loving vegetation. Oaks, pines, blueberries…
