| May 20, 2005 |
| Last night I
stayed at Old Orchard. When I got there I was the only one
there, about 15 - 20 people came through there, some of them went on
and one tented out and about 6 or so in the shelter. It sure
was one stinky place. |
| It rained
during the night hard, with thundered and lightening. It's a
little after 7pm now; Simon and I are going to try and get into
Troutdale today to pick up my mail box drop. So far this trail
is smooth and leaf covered and down hill. the biggest part of the
way and I should be able to cover that 10 miles in not to long of a
time. Some big moss boulders above my head to the right side
and a lot of ferns in this area. Going through a beautiful
rhododendron forest right now. I was surprised that I didn't
wake up this morning with sore ankles and feet with all the rocks
and boulder hopping yesterday. I don't have any trouble with
my heal right now, I'm not limping anymore. The birds a pretty
active this morning after lasts nights rain. I heard owls last
night for a little while |
| The path over
Fox Creek is 8.2 miles to go to Troutdale. Fox Creek had a
water fall and is fairly deep in this area with a nice bridge that
comes up to 2 huge boulders lined with mosses, liken and
rhododendrons growing on top of it. Pretty little area!
I missed my coffee and donut at the creek that the trail angels were
giving out. I was just to early. |
| Mt. Rodgers
recreational horse camp is just below me, I can hear the horses
naying every now and then. Going up a fairly long steep
incline and on either side of me is a deep ravine the goes out into
a valley on one side of it. |
| I stayed with
Spirit last night in the shelter, she is an older lady, I'm not sure
if she's older than I am and she from Tenn. and I started hiking with
her this morning. I just came up Iron Mt and it looks like a
road where they hauled timber out and they just built a new shelter
here at Hurricane Gap. We've came by some beautiful water
falls and crossed several bridges. Rhododendrons were blooming
a fuchsia and dark pink color and tulip poplars. We saw
jack-in-the-pulpits today and violets. Christmas ferns were
sprouting new leaves. Everything looked fresh because of last
night storms. |
 We did make it
to Rt. 650 (My 500 mile
marker) which is the Troutdale exit, then we got up to Rt. 16 and
we were not sure which way to turn and my compass was about half
working, so we stopped a person and they told us we had to go to the
right, so we started hiking and got about 1/2 mile up the road and
got the compasses out again and they were acting crazy, so we still
weren't convinced that we were going east, so we decided to hike
back down to 650 and when we got there; there was another hiker
there and he said he thought we went to the right and we started
debating about directions. An older gentleman came by in a car
and asked us if we had seen any cows along the way, we said, "no"
and then we asked him, "where's Troutdale" and he said "to the
right". We started hiking again and we finally go picked up by
a person in a little red truck whom we had seen on top of Mt
Rodgers. Both of us had talked to him at different times and
he recognized us and also pick up the young boy that was at the
intersection. He brought us to the Baptist Hostel and to the
post-office and all of went to eat at the Troutdale eating post.
Tonight I'm going to sleep under the shelter because I'm not allowed
to have Simon in the hostel which would be down at the church where
the women stay. Simon and I are going to make our bed on the
cement floor and we'll be dry and comfortable tonight. It is
raining now, so we lucked out and had another good hiking day today.
Tomorrow we'll hike about 13 miles, to Partnership Shelter. |
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