TRAIL DAY 68
Thu, Apr 28, 2016 Ready to roll. Food and gear in order. Wait for the package. Time passing. Talk with owners. Cleaning services are going to need to get to my room soon. Wait for the package. Cajole owners and cleaning services who are fine with waiting for me.
During the wait, I pack up the gear to go home in a couple of boxes. Unknowns are: (1) If and when Federal Express package will arrive; (2) How will I get to the post office? (3) How will I get back to the trail? (4) Will I have to stay yet another night?
Trail – full of “ifs” but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Federal Express package arrives. I’ve got my summer gear including:
Zpacks Duplex tent
Tan light summer pants with layered, deep pockets
White short-sleeved shirt
Blue short-sleeved shirt
Grey long-sleeved shirt
Sleeping bag liner to replace sleeping bag (mistake!)
New low-cut Merrill boots (horrible mistake!)
Gear going home:
Big Agnes Fly Creek UL2 tent
UV water filter
Grey lined winter pants with single shallow pockets
Merino wool long-sleeved shirt
Blue fleece vest
Green down jacket
Flannel pajama bottoms (sleep and extra liner)
Sleeping bag
Ankle high Merrill boots (Wilsooooon!)
Reviewing a picture of stuff to send home, I see the UV water filter and I am reminded that I did use that several times. It is supposed to be the only filter that will kill viruses, including the Noro Virus. I was thinking there had to be places where I needed to filter – not every water source came right out of the ground as we got farther north.
My hike was soon to be very much affected by the change of gear at Marion, Virginia, forever a defining location along the trail for me.
When I was ready to go, I got my gear outside so the housekeepers could tend to my room. They saw me having a bite to eat in the strip of gravel and dirt next to the end of the U and asked me if I needed a ride. I said, if they could help, I’d be most grateful. It was a husband-wife team and they were all too happy to get me where I needed to go. I mentioned needing to go to the post office and that was just fine with them – it was on the way back to the trail and they could wait – no problem!
We stopped at the post office and the attendant there was very helpful and friendly. I got sleeping bag and all gear into one box and off it went.
My generous drivers were happy to wait in the car on a bright sunny day and then drive me back to the Mount Rogers Visitor Center where the trail beckoned. The trail is dirt and leaves and hills and valleys and rocks and roots and so many, many acts of kindness without which the journey could not be made. Mountains and Magic of all kinds keep the hiker on track.
From the Visitor Center, it was blip > blip > uup > doown > shelter. The shelter sat on the side of a hill looking east toward a small stream. There were several people already set up for the night with a fire going in a pit in front. I found a spot down a small embankment from the pit and near another ZPacks Duplex tent just like the one I would be setting up for the first time – the tent that would see me to Katahdin.
The Zpacks was super light, strong and easy to set up. Stake out the corners leaving slack for the trekking poles to raise the roof in the middle and stake them out with tension on each side to give a nice taught roof line. It would take a while to learn to tweak the set up so the two flaps at each vestibule would close, a function of the tension at the corners. All staked points played together to produce the desired effect.
“Bigfoot,” the other Zpacks guy told me I’d get the hang of it in time – it was really easy. He was a bigfoot indeed – tall, ruggedly handsome and even a little intimidating in his full head of dark black hair and beard – but a nice guy I would see several more times up ahead.
I ate leaning up against the embankment and turned in.
Day #68 Marion, VA > Chatfield Shelter 6.8 miles