History Preserved

From Helen:
Jay told us about a plaque he hiked past on which many hikers had placed little mementos and coins. The plaque was in memory of Ottie Cline Powell whose body was found on April 5, 1891. It is a sad story about a 4 year old who strayed from the school yard and was forever lost. For the complete story, go to http://www.blueridgecountry.com/archive/ottie-cline-powell.html .

Mark carefully avoided any hint of poison ivy to allow us to
get a picture of him by this old stone wall.

To think of people who lived in these mountains so long ago and went about their daily lives brings me a sense of connectedness that extends deeper than the back-to-nature joy I feel whenever I'm outdoors. I appreciate so much that people care enough to put memorials and post stories about the history of these mountains. When Mark and I were hiking with Jay we passed a stone wall. It didn't look particularly ancient, but we enjoyed thinking about what might have been.

Giant natural stone couch along the AT in VA,
near Buena Vista.

Nature even gives us pause by putting stones and trees together in a way that makes one think of prehistoric days or fantastical tales. We came upon a "couch" of boulders during our hike with Jay. Sitting on it made us feel the size of a child's dolls. So many things to see when we're out there!

Sarah is on the Trail Again

From Helen:
Ruth and Jack dropped Sarah off in Wind Gap, PA to join Jay's hike just a few days ago. She'll be with him for about 6 weeks. The first update we received from them, just 24 hours after they got back on the trail, was that it had rained all night. (Ferocious thunderstorms hit Knoxville that night, too, and we wondered how much of it Sarah and Jay would get.) Sarah said they stayed dry in their tent. They have passed into New Jersey at this point and are doing well. We know Jay is happy to have his "apparition" back by his side.

Shelters with Denizens

From Sarah via email (about 3 weeks ago):

Mark and Jay by tents at a campsite.
Even though Jay's tent is bigger, it
weighs about the same as ours
because it uses hiking sticks as poles.

Jay has refused to sleep in shelters so far on the trip, preferring to pitch his tent, even when he stays near shelters. Many hikers prefer the shelters, feeling better about sleeping on a wood platform off the ground, and with three solid walls around them. 

One night in Shenandoah National Park, he got into the shelter area late, and for some reason EVERYONE had pitched tents. The shelter only had two hikers in it! There was no room to pitch his tent, so he decided what-the-heck; after 900 miles maybe it was time to sleep in a shelter. As evening deepened into dusk, the ever-present rodent population began to make its appearance. One hiker teased Jay as he went to bed, saying, “Aahh, guess I’ll retire to my mouse-proof tent while you deal with the scurrying denizens!” 

Night time friend,
not one of the denizens

Jay said the night was long and filled with mice running up and down the walls, across the platform, and along the rafters. He doesn’t think any actually ran over him, but the dark was certainly full of the creatures! He doesn’t think shelters are worth the fuss. The tables and porches are nice for sitting and talking and eating, but sleeping is better in a tent.

This hiker was congenial, if a little on the slow side.

After he spent the weekend with Mark and Helen, he went through a few days where hikers were in little cliques, and no one seemed interested in talking to him. He finally passed them all up and fell in with a much friendlier crowd. He said the group he has hiked with for the last three days has been really nice and lots of fun to talk with. He even stayed near shelters through Shenandoah National Park, instead of stealth camping, thanks to the amiable hikers. Jay has spent several hours each day conversing with one hiker in particular, Peregrine, a recently retired gentleman who knows all the bird calls. Jay says it is like walking with his own personal talking bird encyclopedia, because Peregrine can identify the calls of every bird he hears. I'm envious!

Pennsylvania

From Helen:
Jay passed through Port Clinton, PA on Friday. He is now about 3 weeks ahead of his itinerary. He's doing well, and Sarah will be joining him on Tuesday. We hope to have more news to post soon. Jay plans to slow down and relax a bit with Sarah there.

Done with Virginia

From Helen:
Jay has passed Harper's Ferry and is still about 15-16 days ahead of his posted itinerary. Below are a couple of trail vistas early on in Virginia.

Shuttling

From Helen:

When we planned to meet Jay we had to find a safe place to leave our car for the weekend and a reliable shuttle to the trailhead at Hog Camp Gap. After gathering a lot of information and calling several leads, we settled on the Dutch Haus near Montebello, VA. See http://www.dutchhaus.com/  The owners, Lois and Earl Arnold, are a wealth of information and go out of their way to help AT hikers. We drove our car to the Dutch Haus, and they were able to shuttle us down to Hog Camp Gap. After the hike we called them from Spy Rock Road. They came to pick us up at the Fish Hatchery parking lot, about a mile downhill from Spy Rock Road.

Hog Camp Gap trailhead

Even though they were booked for Memorial Day weekend, they still allowed us to come in and look around their Bed and Breakfast. They have lunch for AT hikers every day during summer months, no charge, and it is one of those home-cooked lunches that backpackers drool over - lots of great protein, carbs, great taste, and out-of-this-world desserts. While we were there we met several thru-hikers and got to chat with them. Dutch Haus is beautiful and charming, and Lois and Earl are some of the best hosts we've seen.

Earl dropped us off at Hog Camp Gap and told us about a rope and plank swing in the field, just after you get on the trail. It was part of the adventure to go find the swing before we started our hike. Hog Camp Gap is a beautiful trailhead with lots of area for camping and a well-marked water source. Our timing couldn't have been better... We hiked up to the first view and ate a quick lunch. As we were packing up Jay wandered up the trail after his 6-mile morning hike. We were so glad to get to spend time with him on the trail! It may be our last direct contact with him until we see him after his journey.

Swing at Hog Camp Gap

First Bear; Last Blackberry Milkshake

From Sarah via phone conversation with Jay:

Jay told me he saw a bear, first bear sighting on the Appalachian trail for him.  "It was a BIG bear, I mean BIG, tall in the shoulder and really fat, round like a barrel.  Fortunately, when the bear saw me, he veered off into the underbrush and headed down hill." 

Tree that a porcupine has ravaged, in Georgia.
Fortunately there are no bear photos from Jay's trip,
yet. Rattlesnakes pose and smile for the camera
a lot more willingly than bears do!


"Another hiker told me that he saw a bear coming down the trail a few days ago.  The hiker stopped, then began backing up, giving the bear room like the books say.  Well, the bear just kept coming!  The hiker thought, 'this could go on for a while', so he stopped backing up and began walking toward the bear, with his arms outstretched, and doing 'crab hands', while saying 'Yah! Yah! Yah!'  The bear stopped, looked really startled, then turned and headed off the trail.  But the bear just went a few yards, then ducked behind a tree, with his head hidden, but his rear still sticking out!"

I had told Jay last week that the guidebook said Elkwallow, VA was the last place in Shenandoah National Park for northbound hikers to get blackberry milkshakes. 

"Well, I did get a blackberry milkshake today,"  Jay told me.  "It was really good, so, I got three. But it is all your fault." 

"How is eating THREE milkshakes my fault?" I protested.

"Well, you're the one that told me about it, and then I had to eat one for me, and one for you, and one for Daniel," Jay laughed. 

It is so nice to know he is remembering his family during this adventure!

Itinerary Update

From Sarah:
Jay passed through Elkwallow, VA this past Saturday, 6/4, and he'll be past Harper's Ferry before this week ends. He is currently about 15-16 days ahead of his posted itinerary. More stories to come!

Bug Antennae and Buffs

Beginning of the section for Helen and Mark - buffs
and light packs. This is the first view up from
Hog Camp Gap.

From Helen:
The survival reality shows have definitely convinced me of one thing: a buff is a lot more versatile for me than a bandana. In Damascus Jay decided his hat was getting way too hot, and he wanted to trade it out for a bandana. I happened to have a light blue buff with me that weekend, and I offered to let him try it. He hesitated, thinking the color might be a bit too feminine. A guy's gotta preserve his ego somewhat after all! When we later met Jay in Buena Vista he was thrilled over the effectiveness of the buff at keeping bugs out of his ears and the sun off his head. I happily exchanged a more manly maroon-colored buff with him for the light blue one.

Helen demonstrates hiking with ears,
eyes, hairline, and hair covered. Yes,
I could see the trail just fine!

For our weekend hike with Jay, Mark and I were glad to don our buffs to ward off the bugs that plagued us. Lots of black flies and mosquitoes sniped our hairlines, eyes, ears, elbows, calves - any sweaty and exposed surface of skin. I had put some repellent on, but it was still hard to avoid all the bugs. Having both my hands busy with hiking sticks made swatting at the bugs a little risky for my footing as I would let one stick dangle by its loop from my wrist while I aimed at a fly on my head. Since the buffs are so stretchy it's easy to pull them over ears, scalp, neck, and even partly over eyes as a barrier. Ok, it may look a little weird, but maybe this will become a new trail fashion.

One technique that Sarah and I learned when we were kids (Thank you Bud Austin!) is to raise your hand in the air when the gnats are swarming your head. Gnats, and other peskies, tend to migrate toward the highest point of radiant heat, and so having your hand, or another person, higher than your head will keep your face and ears relatively free of bugs (the word relatively being the key term). Well, at one break Jay and I watched as Mark stuck his hand in the air to test the theory. We can't say the bugs completely deserted Mark's head, but there was a definite shift in their orbit. Now you know there's a good reason your friends all sit down near you during a break while you stand, unknowingly serving as a great bug antenna.

Breaktime. Jay takes his turn as the bug antenna.

  





Cold-Prep Food

From Helen:

It's all in the presentation!
Jay's dinner of two packages of ramen
(one rehydrating) and 2 poptarts.

Just a few words about not carrying the weight of a stove and fuel on a long backpack trip. Jay and Sarah and Mark and I have experimented with several different combinations of foods that have variety and taste and yet don't require a stove to prepare. Jay eats ramen noodles with their seasonings; two of them serve as his dinner. He breaks the noodles up, puts them in his water bottle or a freezer baggie with enough cold water to cover them, and rehydrates them for 5-10 minutes. We did the same kind of thing over the weekend with a mixture instant rice, spices, freeze-dried veggies, and a little freeze-dried meat.

After eating sweet poptarts, protein bars, m&ms, dried fruit, and granola all day the taste of the salt and veggies and meat is a welcome change. We've also made cold-prep tabouli in the past with bulgur wheat, dehydrated spinach, parsley, dried lemon juice and garlic. If you can figure out how to carry oil on a backpack trip without getting it all over anything the bottle touches eventually, let me know.

Jay is preparing to hydrate his dinner.
It's a spoon in his mouth. Cleaner than
setting it on the ground!

As for finding bulk freeze-dried veggies and meats, looking online is the best bet. Individually packaged freeze-dried meals are expensive, and often have more packaging than a light packer wants to carry. Bulk foods work well for cold-prep, and it's nice to customize for your own taste. That said, ramen noodles are a great staple. They are cheap, easily available, and can be compressed without being ground to a powder. Long distance hiking requires a good balance of calories, protein, carbs and fats, and it is possible to achieve that balance and still have a good variety without cooking on the trail.

First Rattlesnake

From Helen:



Notes from before and after the stream.
Thank you trail angel who left these!

It was bound to happen sometime in all this hot weather... Mark and Jay and I were blithely hiking down the tame Virginia trails, keeping an eye out for our campsite at Piney River. As the gurgling stream came within earshot, we saw a white sheet of notebook paper under a rock in the middle of the trail. "Rattlesnake!" the note shouted, "Be Careful! Between the rocks, before you get to the stream. 4:15 PM. 5/28/11." We stopped and exchanged cautious glances; we were coming through at 4:45 PM.

Mark was leading our line, and he stepped slowly toward the rocks of the stream. All seemed well, till suddenly Mark leapt to his left, away from some stones in the edge of Piney River. "There it is!" he chuckled,

"I just saw it from the corner of my eye as I passed it." I moved to a safe distance on the left of the trail and peered between the rocks. The snake was coiled around some branches, dark pattern of a rattler just visible, ribbon of tongue smelling us every few seconds as he faced the trail. He had a large diameter, as if he'd just eaten something. We eased around the rocks and across the water one at a time, keeping one eye on the snake and one on our footing.



Rattlesnake - picture taken from safe distance; cropped later.



We could see across the stream that the same person had left a note for hikers coming the other way. The campsite was empty, and we decided to stay in spite of the snake. Gigantic boulders framed the tentsites, and there was plenty of room to spread out. We had our cold-prep dinner rehydrating and tents up in no time. Jay and Mark went back across the stream to take pictures and see if the snake had left. (The perks of backpacking with 2 brave men!) By early dusk the rattler had gone to bed and so did we.





Hwy 60 to Spy Rock Rd.

From Helen:

Lady Slipper - still beautiful

Mark and I met Jay in Buena Vista, VA on Friday over Memorial Day weekend and hiked and camped with him Saturday and Sunday up to the Montebello, VA area. Virginia's forests through this section are beautiful, and the tread on the trail is kind to the feet and well maintained. We passed through acre upon acre of ferns covering the forest floor interspersed with various wildflowers. Even though the mayapple and trillium flowers were past season, we could still see their distinctive leaves asserting their longevity. We saw two lady slippers side by side.... One was already past its prime; the other was hanging onto its bloom still.

Dropping Jay off at the trail head at Hwy. 60
near Buena Vista before Mark and I shuttled
ahead to drop our car and join him

Jay is doing remarkably well. He looks healthy and he's enjoying the hike. Mark and I slowed him down for Saturday and Sunday since we are not in the hiking shape he is. We enjoyed sharing stories and jokes and talking to some of the people we encountered as we hiked. There were many weekend hikers out since it was a holiday weekend. We kept intercepting a group like us - thru-hikers with family and friends joining them for the weekend. They offered us trail magic in the form of snacks and drinks from a large cooler, but, since we had recently started hiking, we moved on.

As we took a short break there was a young group of Boy Scouts that passed us going south. Jay brought them out of their plodding reverie by asking them if they had seen a bear yet. As one unit they stopped short and turned raised eyebrows and slack jaws toward him. "Really? A bear?" they breathed. Jay quickly reassured them: "I've been out here for about 2 months and I haven't seen a bear yet." Their faces relaxed, slightly, but you could see their eyes darting about nervously. As they started walking again they hoisted their packs a little higher and crowded each other for security on the trail.

Old tree on the camper-sized boulder at our tent sites

We camped near Piney River by a camper-sized boulder. It had tremendously thick roots blanketing it from a huge tree perched at its rounded top. Sadly, the tree was no longer living, and we half-jokingly wondered aloud if a strong wind would take the hefty trunk down across our tent sites. With the number of roots anchoring the trunk we decided we had nothing to worry about, for now.

More about hiking with Jay in Virginia in the next post....

Virginia Update

From Helen:
Jay is doing really well hiking through Virginia. He is now north of Waynesboro and is about 10 days ahead of his listed itinerary. Mark and I met him over Memorial Day weekend, and I am working on updated posts and pictures this week. Jay is looking and hiking well!