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Journal
| About Downunda | Trail
Facts | Hiking the Trail |
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17th May 2002 From:
Pickle Branch Shelter 
Started out at 7:00 A.M. this morning knowing I would be climbing. Three
miles from the shelter is The Dragon's Tooth, a spectacular rock outcrop (pictured).
I arrived at the Tooth around eleven o'clock and took the required photo.
There was a group of about 12 boys there who had camped there overnight.
The climb down Dragon's Tooth entailed quite a bit of hand-over-hand
scrambles down tricky rock faces. This took about 30 minutes. I'm glad the
weather was fine as it would be treacherous in wet weather. The difficult
part was always making sure that my backpack was kept in check, as it
doesn't take much for it to pull you off balance.
The weather forecast was for thunderstorms in the afternoon so I decided to have an easy day and head for the Four Pines Hostel, which is just half a mile off the trail. Just as Corncob and I came off the trail a car comes along with Tarzan and his wife. She is down from Nashua for a few days and driving a group of hikers down to Damascus for Trail Days. Anyhow, they picked us up and drove us to the hostel, which is a 6 square garage behind the house owned by Joe and Wanda Mitchell. The garage has a toilet and shower and four camp stretchers set up, plus cooking facilities and a fridge stocked with cold drinks (payment on the honesty system). Stays at the hostel are on a donation basis. When I got to the hostel, I found Real, Paradox, Bald Sparrow, Rocket, and John were there. Most of them left for Damascus shortly after. Corncob, John, and I walked half a mile to a small grocery store, where I had a pint of vanilla pecan ice cream followed by a hot chocolate and two bananas. On the way back from the store John hit the trail again, heading north. Corncob and I hooked a lift to the hostel. It's around 3 P.M. now and it's only Real, Corncob and myself here so far. This is a great place! The house is nestled in amongst rolling hills; I think they have about 8 acres. I can see a handful of cattle just over the fence up from the garage; it's very restful. At this point I am about 6 miles from the western outskirts of Roanoke. Joe lent us his pickup so we could drive to The Homeplace Restaurant, about 4 miles away. We had a great feed. I had a magnificent assortment of vegetables, biscuits, and finished off with blueberry cobbler and ice cream; all for just $9.00. As there are only three of us here, I expect it will be a quiet night. The storms didn't come and at the moment it's about 15 degrees Celsius outside and very pleasant. I think I'll need to do 16 miles tomorrow. So with that, I'll bid you all goodnight. |
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