| May 23, 2005 |
| Leaving
Relaxed Inn in Atkins VA at 10:55am. Going under I-81
underpass and hiking in an open meadow away from I-81.
It has a lot of blackberry vines in bloom, also saw a red-winged
black bird. |
| If you close
your eyes and take a deep breath you can probably smell the aroma of
the bushed as I go through this pasture field - a sweet odor. |
| Into the
woodland going around a side of a mountain and I can look down and
see the creek and follow it up along the valley. Just came
across some sedum that was blooming white, I guess some people call
it rock crest. A lot of yellow butter cups and Danes Rocket
blooming along the side of the creek bank, the purple kind.
Just came through a pasture land for cattle and on of the cows just
had twin claves. I'll be glad to get out of it because it sure
is hot with no cover. We can see the wind blowing all the
grasses, flowers and the meadow lark flying. Simon was a
little concerned about the cow that had the calves. We crossed
the style from the pasture field into an open wooded area and it
feels a lot cooler underneath the canopy of the trees. Lot of
ferns in this area. |
| The sky is
real blue with big puffy clouds. They're predicting rain off
and on today and I hope we don't get it until we reach the shelter.
There a lot of mosses, this must be a damp area I'm going through.
oh there's a fan fern. |
| I lost some
tape here, but here is rest of the day's journey. Walk through
rhododendron bushes in full bloom. they ranged from a real light
pink to a light lavender color or dark pin in color. Also wild
azaleas in bloom orange and yellow. |
The trail was
an excellent trail, easy to travel for the most part. It was
about 5pm when we started up the mountain in hope that the trail
would be easy enough to Mt. Maul Shelter. But we didn't get to
the shelter. After we had gotten through a farmer field, the
farmer had just give permission t the AT to go through his field,
but no camping. So we had to cross several styles from one
field to another and the last one we crossed we decided was
flat enough, that we were going to pitch our tent and stay there.
We no more got our tent up and our supper done, it started to
sprinkle. By the time I
got into my tarp completely and into my sleeping bag it was
thundering and lightening for about 45 minutes.
Hiking Partner 'Switch'
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