| May 21, 2005 |
| It's a
beautiful morning here at the Baptist Hostel. The sun is
coming up in the east and it supposed to be really pretty for the
new 2 days. We're going to get dome breakfast in Troutville
before we leave. |
So far the
trail is hard packed, easy and a steady incline up the hill.
The trail so bordered by laurels and hardwoods. Troutville
used to be a lumber camp, also had furniture factory and now
basically it a ghost town. Several house that are empty that
used to be stores; there's a RR building that they brought back into
town, maybe they'll restore it. There's a post office and a
branch bank, a Baptist church and a trading where we ate.
 Simon
had 2 biscuits and gravy and an egg. |
 Getting to the
top of this hill and you'll never guess how I know, - there's a ton
of rocks on the path. The trail is facing the east side of the
hill. the laurel is just about ready to pop out and the rhododendron
is blooming because the get the morning sun. The rhododendron
are just gorgeous, the pink ones especially. I'm definitely in
the rock pile, the whole hill side is nothing but rocks and so is
the trail. At least we're in the shade while climbing up the
hill, so it makes it a little bit cooler, however the sweat is
running off my brow. |
| On top of the
ridge now, going through moss covered rocks. It's another one
of these woods that is very open, if you were a good sharp shooter
you could shoot a deer a mile off. It looks like there's been
a lot of wind damage. Going through good smelling piff pines
and the trail had a lot of pine needles on it. Have seen some
beautiful wild honey suckles in bloom, bright orange ones. |
| Just got into
Trimpi Shelter, it's a stone shelter with a big fire place right in
the center. It's got a bottom floor with 2 bunks on each side.
I just went down to the privy; talk about an old moldering
privy, this is open, wide open, nobody here but you and the good old
woods. You could sit there and look at the country side all
day long. There is a memorial stone on the inside to the
shelter - In the memory of Robert William Trimpi 1951 to 1969.
The plaque is right above the fireplace. This is one beautiful
shelter. The stone work has been very delicately done, whoever
laid this knew what they were doing. |
| Into an open
clearing and found a lot Virginia blue bells and I've seen the first
may apple white blooms. We've come through an open field and
evidently it has a lot of cows in it because we're seeing plenty of
evidence, even in the trail. The fields is full of butter cup
and what I believe to be a daisy bane. |
| Entering more
of a hemlock forest, and saw some fan fern around the trail, its
kind of rounded at the top like a circle. Standing on the
South Fork ? River Bridge and looking down you can see the bottom,
it looks like a limestone. From the river we're going through
an open hardwood, pine woods area going up a steady grade, rocky,
but still easy to travel. Spirit and I seemed to be hiking in
an old road bed or old RR bed. There is a deep ravine on both
side of where we are walking. Navigator a nice young man just
zoomed past us on the way to Partnership Shelter. |
| Coming into an
area that is just ferns, ferns everywhere you look. They're
tall cinnamon looking ferns. What re are on now is like a
rollercoaster, it goes up and down, flattens out for a little bit
and your think you're on top and it goes up and down again..
The last couple of days we've been seeing wild strawberries in
bloom. This mountain is like Iron Mt., I don't think we'll
ever get to the end ! Going up a rocky hand climb, big
boulders and hopefully the top. |
|
Simon
is speeding up going down this, I don't know if its just cause we're
going done the hill or he knows the Shelter is close. I think
that he thinking that the shelter is close and they'll probably put
a big steak on the grill and that somebody will take his pack off
and rub his belly. |
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