Day 45 – Pearisburg – The Walk

Throughout the night I heard the calls of barred owls echoing throughout the area. One even sat on what appeared to be the tree right above me. Which was a bit annoying, but probably kept the mice at bay!

The rise

I seriously woke up a little after 5am so I could get moving at 6am. I didn’t reach that mark, but shortly after I started on the trail. It was quite dark as we made our way through the rhododendrons, otherwise there was enough light that the headlamp was not necessary. I had a couple minutes of relatively flat terrain before beginning a 1300 foot climb over the course of 2 miles. It was moderately difficult and caused me to sweat profusely, compounded by the fact that as I ascended I was basically walking through a cloud, causing almost everything I was carrying to become wet. I got to the top and at the overlook I couldn’t see anything but fog and I didn’t even bother to take a photo.

Shortly after starting my descent, it started to rain. At first it was light but little by little it was built over time. It never rained much, but soon a moderately steady rain began. At first, the descent was relatively gradual with a gentle trail.

A deer unfazed by my step.

However, it was soon replaced by more technical terrain, quite rocky and difficult to navigate. Fortunately, the rocks were not very slippery, but slippery enough to slow progress due to the possibility of them being slippery.

So many stones…

This continued for over an hour, and it was not always down but also occasionally up. At that point my right ankle started to bother me, which was not a good sign. I was also pretty soaked at that point. It was warm enough that I knew I would be wet from sweat inside my raincoat or from the rain. So I chose to get wet from the rain. Is it cooler, more comfortable and potentially cleaner?

To Pearisburg

About halfway through the day I arrived at Doc’s Knob Shelter where I got some additional water as it was the last source of water until I reached Pearisburg at 9 miles. It was also nice to get out of the rain and have a snack. After about 20 minutes there, I continued into the rain and fog.

The next section of the trail was relatively flat for a while until I climbed to another overlook that was very rocky and too foggy to see anything again. From there it was pretty consistent for the rest of the day until Pearisburg. Most of the descent wasn’t that bad for the most part. While the rain and fog were unfortunate, they kept the temperature relatively comfortable and when the rain occasionally stopped, many of the flowers could be seen blooming. Which added a nice fragrance to the air, which was nice and better than my wet, smelly clothes.

Pearisburg

I arrived down the road around 2:30 pm and texted for Angel’s Rest Hiker Hostel’s shuttle to come pick me up. While waiting for the ferry I met Tortuga! I hadn’t seen it since Hot Springs after walking around it for the previous 3 weeks. It was good to see him and catch up a little. Soon the ferry arrived and picked up me and another hiker. On the way back to the hostel we passed Dairy Queen and I asked her if she would be willing to make a quick stop. She was as long as the other hiker, which was him. So I quickly jumped in and bought a Blizzard, cheese curds and a hot dog, as well as a hamburger for the driver (I was willing to bribe, so I thought I’d offer her when she agreed to stop).

Upon arriving at the hostel, I did normal activities: shower, wash my water filter, do laundry, organize my bag, and took note of what I needed to resupply. While I was in the hostel I also wanted to shave my head as I was tired of growing my hair out (I’ve been shaving my head for over a decade). I had never used a disposable razor before and decided to try it on my hair. I quickly discovered that a disposable razor wasn’t going to cut it (pun intended). To try to save what I started, I cleaned the thinnest part, which is where I started, the top part. This gave me a friar monk look, which was interesting to say the least… Anyway, once I finished doing the laundry, I headed to the Food Lion to complete my resupply.

While completing my resupply, I heard some hikers were heading to Yamato Japanese Steak House for dinner, so I headed there, groceries and all. There was a long wait to get a table to seat the group of 6, Ghost, Star, Major Tom, Ground Control, Camel (fellow Trek blogger!) and myself, but we finally sat down and ordered our food. We were celebrating Star’s departure, as she had completed the entire AT once we reached Pearisburg, as she had completed the rest of the trail the year before. We shared some appetizers before moving on to the proverbial meat and potatoes of our meals. I was really tempted by the steak, but with so much sushi on the menu and considering the value you could get a ton of sushi for the same price as the steak, I went the sushi route and got two orders of sushi and some fried rice. I don’t remember everything that was in my sushi rolls, but they were great!

And that was followed by a cake that Major Tom and Ground Control got for Star at the Food Lion. Star was even kind enough to share the cake with all of us and not eat it all herself, which she rightly deserved to do.

After the cake, I returned to the hostel and said goodbye. It was approaching 10 pm, which was when the quiet time began and I wanted to respect it as much as possible. What started out as a wet and dirty day and ended up clean, dry and full of sushi/cake. What a beautiful thing!

Statistics for day 45:

19 miles

3,353′ ascent, 4,354′ descent

Wapiti Shelter to Angel’s Rest Hiker Hostel

8DSLC…

Stove use times: 7

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