The day started early, with my alarm going off at 5:15am to make sure the van arrived at Tent City before 6:30am Once again, my tent was soaked in condensation, although not as bad as yesterday. Almost everyone was on time when I stopped the van and we were on the road at 6:45am.
leave the children
The return trip was uneventful, with an early stop for gas and breakfast at McDonald’s. For most of the trip there was some pretty interesting conversation from at least parts of the van. I did the reverse route to our route down, with the added bonus of adding Numbers to our crew. I was going to Glasgow, an existing stop for us, very convenient. It was quite bittersweet leaving people on the way back. Aside from a couple of them, I knew everyone in the van and had hiked with them during phases of my hike. And I wasn’t sure if or when I would see them again on the road. It was especially fun to get back with my original trail family of Queso, Beer Run, Shooter, and Blueberry Turtle for trail days! Slowly but surely, I dropped everyone off at their respective spots on the trail for 150 miles until it was just Navigator and me. Someone left their trekking poles in the van, but luckily we were able to hide them in a rock crevice and they were able to retrieve them a few days later.
Pretty good hiding place to store hiking poles.
While driving the last section, Navigator worked to get us a shuttle from the rental car location in Staunton and where we exited the trail, about 15 miles into Shenandoah National Park. He finally got something prepared for us and we left the car without any problems. We also had Subway for lunch and I bought a new USB-C cable since mine was shitting. Our shuttle driver arrived right on time, took us to the park, and dropped us off where we left off on Thursday.
Back on the road
The hike started at 2:15 pm, and just as I was about to start, I ran into Freight Train! This was a pleasant surprise, as I had not seen her since Uncle Johnny’s in Erwin, 550 miles ago. After catching up with her for a moment, I began walking in earnest, with a mile-long climb. On the way up it wasn’t long before I started sweating profusely, with the heat in the 80s.
Fortunately, after that climb the hike was quite complicated, without many major climbs or descents. My goal was to get to Loft Mountain Wayside before it closed at 7 pm. I was going at a good enough pace to do it easily, so I decided to take the advice of a commenter on FarOut and go over the blue trails to the edge of the road, because they were about 0.5 miles long and steep. And instead pass it to a spring and then take the forest path that goes down to the edge of the road, which would be less steep and of a similar distance.
Shenandoah National Park has some really nice trail markers!
Following this advice I arrived at the road at 6:05 pm to find out that it closed at 6 pm… Luckily I ran into Zipper! Another hiker I hiked with before the Smokies but hadn’t seen since Fontana Dam. He was there with his girlfriend and I enjoyed catching up with him and our mutual acquaintances. His girlfriend was even kind enough to give me her leftover fries, something I wasn’t too proud to accept. However, all was not lost as I set up on the trail cover and dried my tent, as well as charging my phone at an outlet. I also found an outdoor faucet, which I filled my water bottles with and used to boil water for dinner. So, something productive but not the hot meal I was looking for.
After about an hour, I returned to the trail to get in a few miles before going to bed. I went a couple of miles and with the sun setting to my left, I ran into a small rattlesnake along the way!
I tried to get him out of the way but he refused to follow my advice, much to my chagrin. I gave it a few minutes and decided to walk a path around it, with plenty of space between us… After that, I put a good mile between me and the snake and found a nice stealth spot to camp. As I pitched my tent, with the sun setting in the distance, several deer wandered 15 feet away, mildly interested at best in my presence. But they were busy eating so I would bother them.
View from my stealth site
Statistics for day 63:
11.7 miles
2,562′ ascent, 1,837′ descent
Tent City @ Trail Days to Stealth Site
9DSLC…
Stove use times: 11
Snakes seen on the trail: 9
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