At the risk of being repetitive, it was cold last night. Temperatures dropped into the mid-thirties, although since the wind was practically non-existent, last night didn’t feel as cold as the last two nights. I’m not sure if it’s the colder nights, but the last few nights I’ve slept pretty well, which has been fantastic. My ankle hurts a lot this morning, probably from climbing up those rock walls yesterday afternoon. Let’s hope the terrain today is more forgiving. If everything goes as planned today I will end my day with beer and pizza. Let’s keep our fingers crossed!
Good way
The trail started out pretty moderate and the first two miles were pretty easy terrain. Mostly flat or gentle descent. I then came to a road junction and Craig Creek which I needed to ford. Fortunately, with the current drought, the stream was low enough that I could jump across it and not get my feet wet.
I then started a pretty decent climb of about 1,400 feet over 2 miles, luckily the trail looked fantastic and had a series of switchbacks that made the climb not bad at all. This put me at the top of the ridge, which I followed for several miles. Along the ridge I stopped at the monument to Audie Murphy, a highly decorated World War II veteran who died in a plane crash in the area.
The Audie Murphy Monument
After that, there was a descent from the ridge to a parking lot and a stream. At the stream I filled up on water, my last source for a while, and had lunch with MasterChef, Fuego and Fozzy. We had gotten together in a group the last few days, which has been fun. After a nice lunch break, I began the ascent towards Dragon’s Tooth.
dragon tooth
The climb started with some nice switchbacks until we reached the top of the ridge. Once on the ridge, the trail became rockier and more tedious. However, shortly after reaching the ridge, I reached 700 miles completed on the trail!
Approaching 1/3 of the trail! I continued up and down the ridge until I reached Dragon’s Tooth, the first of Virginia’s Triple Crown. The ridge before reaching Dragon’s Tooth was quite technical, with some scrambling over rocks. It slowed my pace quite a bit and again, at the risk of being repetitive, it was difficult to navigate with my right ankle. But in the end I did it!
Getting off the Dragon’s Tooth was a betrayal. No, I don’t mean betray, I mean I felt betrayed and personally aggrieved by the trail. It was a very steep and technical descent for the first half mile.
that’s the trail
What made matters worse was that the wear and tear of numerous feet on these rocks made some of them quite slippery, even in dry conditions, like I had today. I can confirm this because I once fell on my back, and there were many other near-fall situations. There were also numerous day hikers to navigate as it was a Sunday and a popular day hike in the area. In the end, the descent got a lot better, although it wasn’t necessarily a picnic. From Dragon’s Tooth to the road junction was approximately 2.3 miles. I mention the highway junction because that’s where I turned off the road and walked to the convenience store via a short walk up the road.
Fellow Trek blogger MasterChef and I at Dragon’s Tooth
Once I got to the store I completed my resupply as well as dinner for tonight. I ended up ordering a pizza, Gatorade, several beers, and a zebra pie.
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye
I then walked back to the trail and found a campsite for the night. Fozzy, MasterChef, Fuego and I decided to go to cowboy camp too since the weather seemed nice. First time a cowboy camped on a trail until now.
Cowboys camping to win!
Statistics for day 49:
17.7 miles
4,268′ ascent, 4,446′ descent
Niday Shelter to the Camping
2DSLC…
Stove use times: 8
Tracker of whole pizzas consumed: 8
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