The Fight for Waynesboro – The Trek

Por

junio 25, 2026

Thursday June 18, 2026

My brain is frozen at the thought of ice cream, but between me there are 15 miles of trail that I need to complete with my leg batteries in the red.

back to that

ohThat night there was quite a breeze, which woke me up several times. My hurried pitch in the dark was not particularly schooled and my tent was noisier than usual. I also hadn’t found any rocks to keep my floor pegged to the ground, and I was surrounded by a sea of dry, crunchy leaves. Most of the sounds of nature were drowned out by the sound of the wind fighting everything in my general area. I finally woke up a little before 7:00 am. I heard one of the other campers moving around and packing up his gear. I unplugged my sleeping pad and started gathering all my gear. The tasks were surprisingly quick, especially rolling up my tent, which is a much cleaner and easier job when placed on a layer of leaves than on a layer of dirt, which tends to stick to the ground sheet. I made it back to the trail before either of the other two campers. This must be the life of those who routinely put in high mileage days, being the last to arrive at camp but the first to leave camp. Of course, I don’t consider myself a high mileage hiker, and today’s 15 miles are pretty easy by my standards.

My first stop was for breakfast at the Seeley-Woodworth Shelter, about 1 mile south of Porter’s Gap. The shelter was a short distance from the trail and the spring was about another tenth of a mile from the shelter. The flow through the pipe was excellent and represented about half the capacity of the 3-inch pipe. My 2 liter water bladder went from empty to full in a few short moments. I had finished breakfast and was back before 9:00 a.m. I had drank more than a quart of water at the shelter and thought I had a good chance of making it the 14 miles to the van without another water stop. Once in town, I was able to find a grocery store with a water fountain and have all the water I could drink.

Be careful with the weather

Shortly after leaving the shelter I noticed that the overnight breeze had not diminished. There were also increasingly sinister-looking clouds overhead. Every once in a while, a little sunlight would sneak through a gap in the clouds, but I also noticed that some of the stronger breezes brought with them some fog. I checked my status, it was 11 miles to go before I got back to the truck. That would be about 4 to 5 hours, if it rained earlier, then I was in for another episode of the poncho trekking experience. I wished I had a reserve of energy to get back to the van in twice as long, but my legs had been pushed to the limit each of the last three days and were offering little more than mediocre but steady pace.

With about 2,800 feet of elevation gain in the first 12 of today’s 15 miles, I knew I would push myself hard once again. It would all be worth it once he got back to the van, but until then he would be fighting as usual until early afternoon. Fortunately, the rain never materialized beyond a tiny drizzle. So that was at least one less thing hindering my progress.

I scream for ice cream

Pouring rain? Gusts of wind? These are not the characteristic signs of a mid-June summer day. It was colder than any of the previous three days, which were by no means scorching. I’ve been working hard putting in extra miles and walking through a pesky pinky blister to shorten today’s mileage and have time to grab a bite to eat in town. When I say city food, I mean at least 1 liter of ice cream, if not several.

However, Mother Nature is not cooperating. The wind has brought much lower temperatures. It looks like a cool mid-spring day. It’s not a day for ice cream! This is tragic! I want ice cream, but I don’t want to shiver while I eat it. I want the satisfying sensation of creamy flavors to help keep me cool. The wind threatened to take the wind out of my sails. This is the kind of trials and misery we hikers face here on the Appalachian Trail.

Woe is me

With my dreams of a strawberry-flavored treat under siege, I pressed on, not knowing exactly what for. I felt like I was stuck in Groundhog Day. I would go up a hill and then down a bit until I reached a gap, which would inevitably lead me to another hill. The trail was rarely flat and the descents did little to breathe life back into my legs. I felt like I was climbing three steps for every step I took down. The only positive thing was that the blister on my left pinky finger seemed to have finally turned the corner. It still felt more curved than my right pinky finger, but I don’t think it will give me many more problems.

brute force

Somehow, I was managing to brute force my way along the trail. In fact, I was staying close to my normal pace despite how I felt. From time to time I would pass a sign indicating the remaining miles to Route 60. The miles steadily decreased from 11 to 8 to 6. I knew the last three would be all downhill from the bald knob to the truck. Every time I passed a sign I calculated the difference in my head and knew there was light at the end of the tunnel. He could feel the light getting stronger with each step. The last 3 miles before Bald Knob included two 500 foot climbs. Under normal circumstances, these could almost have been described as a fun challenge. Even though I was defying the odds and fighting hard, it wasn’t easy to feel satisfaction.

The top of the first climb revealed a meadow and I knew I was back on top of Cole Mountain. The view was cloudier than on Monday, which, added to the continuous gusts of wind, altered the scene quite a bit. While Cole Mountain and Bald Knob rise to about the same height, there is about a mile of trail between them, descending and then ascending about 600 feet. As before, the descent did not increase the load on my legs one bit. The climb up Bald Knob was the steepest I had faced all day. Completing each step was a huge challenge. I knew that somewhere above me the climb would end and I wouldn’t need any more proportion of my legs. I wanted the climbing to end, so stopping was never an option. At 12:30 I finally finished the climb and began the 3 mile descent back to the road.