Retro Blazing (Day 43) – The Walk

To retro blaze: verb: the act of riding a section of “old” trail, which is no longer part of the official route.

After two zero days, it’s time to start walking again! Almost immediately we ran into a detour, because they are busy fixing the Virginia Creeper Trail. We have two ATC verified diversion options:

Option 1: We took a shuttle and hopped over 22 miles.

Option 2: We hiked a portion of the Iron Mountain Trail for over 22 miles, which used to be part of the official AT until back in the ’70s.

Although technically allowed, skipping more than 20 miles seems wrong. And it’s not every day you get to walk some old parts of the trail where greats like Earl Schaffer and Grandma Gatewood walked! We decided we’re going to do a retro fire.

But before we could leave, we had to go back to have breakfast at our favorite restaurant. I love the chocolate milk here by the way!

Following the yellow fire

This section has been very gradual and enjoyable. It feels good to walk again.

Ferdinand is trying to learn Dutch through a Harry Potter audiobook spoken in Dutch. Before the trial, he was a linguist by profession. He must be getting a little bored.

The rest of the day was somewhat uneventful. But that’s not bad. Hiking feels like a relationship. At first everything is new, but now the novelty has worn off. All the trees look similar and the views are the same. But that doesn’t mean I no longer love the trail, on the contrary.

camping

When we arrived at the campground, we were surprised at how nice the tent sites were! A college boy was trying to hang on to the bear, but he was having some difficulty. We decided to help him.

At 8 pm, Scholar came in, apparently two more are coming: PK and Dreamcatcher! We had a great time with them yesterday at the hostel.

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