TRAIL DAY 63

Sat, Apr 23, 2016 As I was packing up in the morning after breakfast, El-Tejano came by and all was well.  He’d figured I probably had headed for the Pond campsite.  He swung around the pond on the far side from us and was gone.  I never saw him again.

Before El-Tejano came down the knoll from the ladies’ campsite a steady stream of hikers also swung around the pond at a good clip and disappeared.  One of them told me there’d be a lot more coming by soon and, indeed, there were.  They were all on a 30-mile, single day challenge hike raising money for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CFF).

After I filled my water at the tumultuous torrent spilling into the pond from the shallow bog, I packed up and headed out on the same trail the fundraisers were on at a pace nowhere near theirs.  The night’s rain had cleared the leaves from our path.

As I hiked, I found myself in the midst of the long stream of CFF hikers.  They were all from North Carolina and drove up to Virginia to do this annual fundraiser.  There had to be near a hundred people and they did not have time to dawdle.  They had a definite mission to accomplish in their all-for-one, one-for-all undertaking.  Thirty miles dawn to dark.  A big trek that would take them many miles and many vertical feet, from about 2,300′ up 3,400′ to 5,700′ for a cause they obviously believed in.  I’m sure most of the people undertaking this arduous trek were related to or very close to someone with the vicious malady.

When I was able to keep up long enough to inquire, I asked if any of the hikers knew Robert Beall, the husband of a girlhood friend of my wife who recently retired from the post of Executive Director of the National CFF.  They knew him well and wished him well.  This was an early-Virginia happy coincidental connection.

There would be more “coincidences” along the way.  Were they only that or were they something God wanted to do in my fractured soul on this sojourn to which I had said, “Yes”?

Before long the rain-soaked trail joined a gravel road.  The CFF had set up a comfort station here for their challengers and welcomed me to help myself to all the food they had.  It was only a little after 9:00 in the morning but I was sure to oblige.  Besides, a hiker can always bulk up on food and “camel up” on fluids.  It was nice to connect with their worthy cause if only as a stray recipient of their generosity.

We carried on across a wide stream and onto a bypass trail around the washed out bridge eventually to emerge from the woods in misty fields taking us up and around rolling hills to the foot of Mount Rogers at a small parking area.

Five people and two dogs greeted me here.  One went to his vehicle and offered me a beer.  I did not decline.

“How about a little Bourbon to take with you?”

He held up one of those little bottles you get on airplanes – the kind Shivers brought to Pecks Corner Shelter on Good Friday.

I was hesitant to accept more generosity but did with gratitude.

Our dogs got along as well as we did.  They were a genial bunch and assured me the climb ahead was not too bad.  With a little extra sugar in my system, I felt I should put it to work and move on up the mountainside.  I thanked my benefactors and set out.  These folks were not intentional Trail Angels but an old thru-hiker with his dog must have tapped the milk of human kindness in their veins to spread friendship and good cheer and that they did.

Theo and I began our climb up the mountain we would later learn was Mount Rogers, the tallest peak in Virginia.  It was around 12:30 p.m.  We would not find a spot to camp unti l after 8:00 p.m.

The woods were dreary, damp and deep and sucked us into their mystery.  I was only slightly spooked by the atmosphere.  We were, of course, alone and passed by only one hiker en route but, in time, we emerged once again from the woods into misty clearings where we came upon a young southbound couple with a chocolate lab.  Reason enough to exchange chatter, dog talk, take each other’s pictures and then we headed back into the woods, soon to surface at another clearing – this time sunny and bright through a break in the overcast.  It didn’t last long but the respite was good.

As we carried on – isn’t that what we always did? – we saw a tent set up far out in a field at around 5:30 p.m.  We’d see a large grouping of tents at 7:45 p.m.  Our goal was to get to the turnoff to the Mount Rogers summit which was 0.5 miles off the trail.  At what seemed at least 4 miles back we’d seen a sign saying the summit was 4.5 miles on.  But, as is often the case, trail miles seem a lot longer than road miles that whizz by in our daily, civilized lives.

We passed the camp sites intent on getting closer to our destination.  The summit turnoff was a sufficient landmark for me.  I would not bother with the extra 0.1 mile to the Thomas Knob Shelter.

It seemed we were in high grasslands as the trail went in and out of pine groves.  I began seeing animal droppings that added to the vague spookiness of the afternoon.  They looked like the droppings of a horse but they were too small.  They were too large for any other animal I knew.  Deer?  Certainly not a moose.  I’d seen plenty of moose droppings in Vermont on The Long Trail and these monsters did not inhabit the south.  What could it be?

Where was this turnoff?  I wondered if I’d passed it.

We proceeded through sparse trees and thick grass until we came upon a thicket of pines off to our left with tall spindly briers off to the right.  It was perhaps a little tight for a tent but we’d make do.  This would be home for the night.  Our own little, one-man-one-dog pine grove in the Virginia highlands just shy of the state’s highest mountain summit.

Here’s that “like-little” thing again.  Just enough room for Theo and me.  There was even a fire pit someone else had built.  We wouldn’t need it but it added to the cozy feel.

I pitched the tent running the guys over a log or fixing them in roots wherever I could.  This was going to be our home no matter what it took.  We’d make it work.

Of course, I fed Theo and cooked my supper and eventually crawled in quite happy with myself.  Happy enough to sip my Knob Creek Kentucky Straight Bourbon.  I was settling down in a cozy pine cove with some gen-u-īne southern comfort!

It had been a good day.

Day #63   Pond, campsite > Mount Rogers Pine Grove 15.8 miles