Sun, 15 Oct 2006
Miles Today: 3.25
Total Miles: 3.25

First night along the trail. So far, so good!

Mindy met at my place at 9 this morning and we were on the road soon after. Seven and a half hours later, we arrived in Waynesboro, VA. We made good time. Google Maps estimated the trip at 9.5 hours, but we took a slightly different route and didn’t run into any traffic. We stopped once in Beckley, VA for a meal, our last “real” food for a while.

We picked up our backcountry permit at the Rockfish Gap entrance station to Shenandoah National Park, parked the car at the nearby visitor’s center and hit the trail by 5. We didn’t want to waste any time since it would be dark soon. We hiked a good 3.25 miles, until 6:30, then set up camp. The hardest part about setting up camp was finding a tree to hang the packs from! We couldn’t find any trees that had suitable branches, and the rope kept getting stuck. Camp was setup and the packs hung by 7:30, and it was dark. Lots of time to kill - too early for bed by far.

The trail itself has been okay so far, though it’s rockier than I expected. I’ve seen four deer, all within 30 ft. or so. Very friendly, very much not scared of people. We passed three people so far - one trail runner and 2 hikers, all heading south. I wonder how crowded the trail will be further in.

Along the way, thoughts of an old friend popped into my head. Andrea Schmidt (now Glaze) was a good friend during my Georgetown College days, there for me during some rough times involving girls. Anyway, the reason she popped into my thoughts was because we had gone hiking several times and during one of those hikes, she walked with her hands above her head for a distance. After I looked at her funny, she said the blood was pooling in her fingers, so she put them over her head to let the blood flow. Guess you had to be there…

To kill some time, since there was no way we could go to sleep at 7:30, we played some cards, namely Phase10. Mindy won both games we played - as usual. She beats me at almost everything, the exceptions being bowling and chess. I’m determined to beat her at least once this week.

Well, it’s almost 9:30 now, so I’m going to try to get some sleep. The temperature is supposed to dip to 30° tonight. I should be warm in my new sleeping bag, but the morning could be rough. Sunrise at 7:30. Yuck!