Made Marion

Hey again, hope everyone is well back home. So the other day I was quite despondent about the prospects of continuing my adventure, well the good news is that later that day a Lady called Desree (trail name Prei) appeared at Woodchuck hostel who it turned out is a massage therapist who helps out hikers at trail days. When she heard of my injury problems she said she'd take a look, so there I was at lunchtime sat on a picnic bench putting my faith in her expertise. She told me that pain in the front of the leg can often stem from problems directly opposite so she started her examination and immediately found some areas around the back of the ankles and calfs that were extremely tight. For about three quarters of an hour she worked her magic manipulating the muscles and tendons and believe me it hurt like hell at times but after she'd done I could immediately feel a marked improvement, there was much more movement and I could literally feel the blood flowing better through my limbs. Within an hour I felt like I had a new pair of legs, the woman was a genius! Don't get me wrong it wasn't perfect but it was the best they'd felt in three weeks. She works on a donation basis and although she said she'd do mine for free I felt obliged to give her a token $20 gesture. She said to give it twenty four hours before hiking again so I was to be in Damascus for another day. I rested up for a while before watching Woodchuck himself and one of his employees playing a game called Cornhole. It's a similiar game to Pétanque whereas you have two wooden platforms twenty yards apart with a hole near the slanted top. Each player has four beanbags and you have to try and get it in the hole. Very simple but not as easy as it looks as I found out! Woodchuck challenged 'the Brit' (which I quickly corrected him to Englishman, as I often have to do!) and after explaining the scoring system (1pt for landing a beanbag on the platform and 3pts for getting it in the actual hole) he proceeded to beat me 21-6 and 21-2 although I did beat Scout 21-0!

The next day my legs still felt good so I was confident enough to re-supply and sort my bag out ready to start hiking again. A few more people started arriving that day for trail days which starts at the weekend and I caught up with Fresh Breath who I seem to keep crossing paths with, Sneaky Pete and a few others. I went for a final burger at Bo Bo McFaddens and packed my bag ready to get going in the morning.

So Tuesday morning after a final few chats with people I set out in the sunshine along the Creeper Trail. It's not exactly the AT but it follows a similiar path and is slightly less strenuous but far more scenic and rejoins with the AT a bit further along. It's an old rail route which is now primarily a cycle track and as it has only a slight incline all the way I thought it would be wiser to take it just to see how the legs held up. It runs alongside a river all the way and after a few hours I stopped at one of the many bridges and soaked my feet in the cold water which was a welcome break. When the two trails joined up again they ran on the same route for a mile before parting and I rejoined the AT properly. I picked off my first tic that afternoon which had attached itself to my arm and I did notice that things were turning greener and wildlife and bugs were becoming more prevelant. At the last bridge before leaving the Creeper Trail I saw my first snakes since I'd been here, two black rat snakes curled up together on the side of the wooden structure basking in the sun. I was ecstatic! I always keep my eyes peeled as I'm walking but this was the first real reptiles I had come across. I caught up with Gypsy Queen, Stealth and Tailspin and it was only a short hike to Lost Mountain Shelter where the days walking ended. I'd covered 15.8 trail miles and both legs felt ok although any longer and I think I'd have been struggling. As I set up my stove behind the shelter I heard this big thud behind me and spun around to see another black snake had fallen out of the tree and landed about two feet behind me. At about five feet long with blue eyes it scared the crap out of me! It slithered under the shelter and an elderly gentleman said not to worry as it would kill any mice that might be around the shelter and they weren't venomous to humans. Easy for him to say, it hadn't nearly become a necklace on him! Apparently they are good for keeping Rattlers away as they go into their nests and eat the young but still after watching it climb another tree I kept a close eye on what was above me for the rest of the evening. It rained heavily that night and that became the pattern for the next few days, mainly dry in the day but wet at night and because of this I decided sleeping in the shelters was the preferred option.

Again I set out on my own the next day, slowly but surely as the overnight rain had made the rocks and roots quite slippery. The terrain had slightly changed, the mountains weren't so big and although it was still up and down quite a bit it certainly didn't seem as tough as the first few weeks. I hit Whitetop mountain at around lunchtime and became engulfed in cloud as the weather quickly changed, it was one of those days where the raincoat was on and off all day, too hot one minute then raining again the next. It was also noticeable how few people were heading North but that day I saw more Southbounders in the single day than I had in the whole eight weeks put together, everyone was heading into Damascus. When I'd started out on Tuesday I was undecided what to do about trails days. On the one hand it would be great to catch up with everyone who id not seen in a while and a couple of days partying would have been nice but on the other Damascus is a very small town of 600 residents with an estimated 20000 people turning up, bedlam! Plus coming out of  Damascus would be a nightmare and as my legs were feeling ok it felt right to carry on hiking, that's what I came out here for! So on the Wednesday I pretty much decided that I was just going to go to Marion and not hitch a ride back. I was doing a lot of thinking that day and in the early evening I can't have been concentrating as for the first time I properly lost the trail. I knew I was only about a mile away from Thomas Knob Shelter and I came out onto a bald and I couldn't see where the trail went, I stood for a minute searching with my eyes and saw a signpost down in the middle. When I got to it it only pointed out horse trails so I looked around again then set off in different directions but still no white blaze. I wouldn't say I was panicking but with hardly any other hikers around and daylight fading I was a little concerned that I would have to set up my hammock and work it out in the morning. Then I gathered my senses and did what I would tell other people to do, re trace your steps and go back to the last white blaze that you saw. Sure enough I went back, found the blaze and realised I'd missed a turn and re found the trail! Not before I'd walked about two miles extra and wasted an hour though. It was a relief to get to the shelter that night, a big shelter that could sleep sixteen but there were only four of us in there. Another interesting day on the trail was over and I was happy with my decision to crack on. 

I got going about nine o clock on Thursday and knew I had the Grayson Highlands national park to look forward to, the previous nights storm had passed and it was looking like a glorious day. Not long into it I came out of the woods and the trail started going over treeless mountain tops and lots of rocky outcrops, one in particular was called Fatmans Squeeze and you had to climb through a short rock tunnel which was different than anything before. After that the Grayson Highlands came and it was a stunning area with wild ponies roaming the grassy tops, there were a few people up there (mainly Southbounders!) and everyone was having their picture took with the miniature horses. It was worth hanging around for a while just to enjoy it all, some people are very fast hikers and think nothing of doing twenty mile days but I prefer to go slower and take it all in, you obviously see more doing it that way. Overall I came across three different pockets of horses, all nonplussed by the people around, and a herd of Long Horned Cattle grazing right next to the trail in the middle of a field. You only walk through about four miles of the national park itself but I stopped for lunch at the next shelter and was just relaxing when a deer came right up close feeding on the bushes and like the cattle it was not at all bothered by human presence, it took one look at me and carried on about its business. That's the thing about hiking on your own, you get more of a chance of such encounters, that's why I like the times when there's not many other people about. It was a grand days hiking in all, lots of animals and different trails, through forest, over highlands and meadows, rocky, flat in places, hilly in places and all in the space of 12.3 miles. As I approached Old Orchard shelter I could see there were people there and when I got there, there was quite a crowd. It turned out there was a Quaker Mormon school outing of about ten people, adults and kids and they didn't seem that pleased to see me after I'd asked about room in the shelter itself. The adults didn't seem that keen to make room although they said all the right things but the rule is that Thru hikers have the right over section hikers to stay in the shelters and as it started to rain heavily I thought I'm not setting my hammock up if I don't have to. Eventually they said they'd set up some tarps and the kids were very happy to do that, more so than the adults! As it turned out surprisingly quite a few others turned up including another fellow Englishman called Pancake from Manchester and his Aussie friend and a group of four lads all of whom were hitching back to Damascus the next morning. So that was it, the school party moved out anyway, not that I felt bad because like I say the adults were pretty arsey anyway! Later that night one of the adults came back up and woke everyone up asking if we had phone service as one of the kids had cut their foot. I hadn't had service for days, the same as everyone else and so they took the strange decision to night hike out of there the two miles to the road with the whole party in tow. It all seemed a bit weird to the rest of us! 

Friday morning the rain eventually abated about nine am but it still wasn't that nice and was very slippery underfoot so I carefully made my way along the trail especially as it was the thirteenth! Surprisingly I started racking up the miles, at the top of Iron mountain my phone finally got signal and I had a few messages asking me to go back to trail days and that got me thinking! Once the thought of town and all its amenities enters your head its hard to shake off and with a major road coming up I had a decision to make. I was always going to stop in Marion which I would reach the next day anyway so the thought grew stronger and by the time I reached Dickey Gap and VA16 I'd decided I was going to hitch a ride. However, I was going to leave it to fate, it's a narrow mountain road so I stuck my thumb out to both directions and thought whoever stops first I will go in that direction. One way to Damascus and the other to Marion. After nearly an hour (nobody wanted to pick up a dodgy looking Englishman!) a guy dropped off two other hikers and he said he'd take me to Marion, so that was that and here I am in town. That was yesterday so this is my second night here, it's been nice, I've had a hotel room to myself and I've realised not all hikers are at trail days, there's a German couple in the next room and I had a couple of beers with a guy called Jeff last night who i previously met at the Laughing Heart. Also Stealth and Tailspin were here and today Bigging and Costa Rica showed up and tonight Rock City and Cupoftea. Seems I wasn't the only one who didn't fancy a big crowd! Marion is quite a nice town, big enough to have all the names but not too big that they aren't within walking distance; Walmart, Ingles, McDonald's and Pizza Hut are all close to the Travel Inn where im staying and I've been in them all over the last twenty four hours. It's turned cold again tonight and says the same tomorrow and rain everyday this next week but I'm heading out in the morning. I've got a lift arranged to take me back to Dickey Gap so as not to miss anymore miles so that means tomorrow night I could be back in Marion! But I won't be, there's a shelter just outside town so that's tomorrow's destination. I've done my re supply and have enough food for the next six days so I won't be back in town. The next town is either Bastion or Bland but I'm only going there to stock up, the plan is to not stop in town until Pearisburg which is approximately 115 miles from where I'm going back to tomorrow so that could mean two weeks without shower, clothes wash or decent food. Time to toughen up again!!

Whilst in town I've not wasted time, I've eaten well, re stocked all my food, bought a pair of shorts and t-shirt from walmarts for five dollars apiece so I could wash all of my clothes for a change, I've attached new guide ropes to my tarp and also bought a new headlamp, again from walmarts (it is so cheap there it's brilliant) as mine had broken. I've bought a new box of ziplock bags and re-bagged everything as they tend to get a bit grim and once again rearranged everything in my pack. I've also showered twice and will do again in the morning. Not to mention I've been writing this in between everything else so that you are right up to date before I head off into the woods again, I've no idea when I will next get phone signal, could be tomorrow, might not be for a week, either way I'll just keep racking up the miles and keep getting closer to my destination (I've passed the 500 mile mark now). I've now been on trail for over seven weeks and it's flown by, touch wood my injury problems are at the moment behind me and I can keep on keeping on. 

I'm yawning my head off here so it's time to bid you goodnight, like I say you're right up to date and tomorrow it's time to get back to some serious hiking! Will update you all when I can.

007

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