| June 08, 2005 |
| Leaving at
7:50am. from Lamberts Meadow Shelter. It rained last night,
thunder stormed pretty hard, and the trail is washed, but it seems
to be mostly downhill today going into Troutville, which is 220 and
11. I'm glad I was in the shelter last night during the
thunder storm. I have about 10 miles to do today. |
| Starting out
I've been hiking along a little creek that is running on all solid
rock down hill. The rock is so smooth that its looks like a
big piece of plastic. The sun is really bright this morning
coming through the tree tops which is a good sign that it'll be a
good hiking day. Yesterday and the day before it was about 80
degrees. |
|
I noticed that the trail is leaf covered,
but where it is washed out it is pure sand, makes it easy hiking.
Its amazing where all this sand comes from the top of the mountain.
I hear the train whistle down in the valley. I think
Troutville is a fairly good size town. It is very close to the
interchange. |
|
I went down to the creek last night and
took a sponge bath and washed my head in the cold running water.
Simon has a fairly good size water basin and I use that to put
water and bathe, so it works real well. To wash my head I just
put water over my head, soap it pretty good and then I take the
water in that little plastic water bowl of his and pour it down over
my head. I was so stinky and dirty after being on the trail
about 5 days or so that I just needed to wash up before I got into
town today. By the time I get there I'll still be stinky and
sweaty, but not as bad I was. |
|
I also had another incident last night that
was kind of freaky. I put Simon in the corner of the shelter
and I lie next to him so that he doesn't bother anybody else.
Well there was a new broom that was sitting up at the side of the
shelter where I was sleeping. Wouldn't you know that in the
middle of the night that broom fell over and hit me right in between
the eyes like a ball bat, that really hurt. |
|
Coming into large out copings so we had to
weave in and out. There's a hawk soaring in the sky above me,
just kind of laying there almost . Going down a major down
hill that has a lot of lose rocks and real fat boulders. Very
tricky to get here without slipping on one of those small rocks and
turning an ankle or falling. |
|
Just after I just got off a real steep
slope I came to a level place and stopped to give Simon a drink of
water and discovered that I had left his water bowl back at the
shelter. I hope somebody brings it to me. I have this
little cloth bowl that I don't really like to use for water. I
just poured him water in the bowl when Moon walked up to me, I asked
if by any chance he's brought Simon's water bowl and he pulled it
out of his pack, so I was really lucky. |
|
Both Spirit and Simon must be anxious to
get into town today. Spirit left about 20 minutes before I did
and I haven't caught up with her yet and Simon has been walking way
out ahead of me which unusual. I guess he's got steak on his
mind or something good. |
|
We just came up by Hay Stacks Rock,
Tinker Ridge. What it is, is a huge big rock, several rocks
stacked on top of each other in a long line like you would stack
round bales of hay, and some balancing on top just like tinker toys.
We're on one solid ridge of rocks. |
|
On this one section of the trail was so steep that I had to crawl
up. From the top of Hay Stack hill I can over into
the valley and we've been seeing this little lake off in the
distance for a long time. It curves around the bottom of the
mountain and I can see the shadows in of the mountain in the lake,
boat docks and the mountains surrounding it are a lot lower and
level and at the head of it is a little town. |
|
Made it into Troutville about 1:30pm.
Stayed at the lodge. Couldn't get the PO box drop until the
next day. |
|
Swing'n Jane and
Simon |
|
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