Day 46: God's Thumbprint

Hiked 24.0 miles, tenting at Helvey's Mill shelter.

Chestnut Knob shelter, where we spent the night, is supposed to have a fantastic view of a land formation called God's Thumbprint.  Unfortunately both last night and this morning it was too foggy to see it.  It is a huge elongated caldera, whether volcanic or meteoric I'm not sure, and from aerial pictures of it that I've seen it does in fact look like a giant thumbprint.  People who got to the shelter before yesterday's thunderstorm confirmed that it was a great view, it was too bad to miss it.  The privy at Chestnut Knob shelter actually only has three walls and theoretically you can see the caldera while sitting on the pot.

Chestnut Knob shelter

As I left camp this morning a gentleman came running up the mountain.  I was confused because it was early and the weather was crappy for a day hiker.  He informed me that his car was at the bottom of the hill and had some fruit in it and I should help myself then stick around for more.   I was expecting a handful of bananas or something which would have been great in and of itself.  It turns out he and his brother (trail names are Freak and Hemlock) do trail magic once a year and go all out and we just happened to be there on the exact day that they were doing it.  The spread was amazing, especially the fresh fruit and veggies.  Fruit and vegetables are a luxury item on the trail because we get them so rarely.  These guys had fresh blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, kiwi, bananas, oranges, cantaloupe, pineapple, apples, grapes, broccoli, carrots, green pepper and so much more.  Then they broke out about five different kinds of pastries, chili dogs, baked beans, homemade potato salad, soda, milk, beer, the list just keeps going.  They even had postcards stamped and ready to send if we just filled them out.  We had gotten an early start today but that was nullified as it took about two hours to leave.  Apparently their whole family takes part in the preparations and is something they have loved doing about seven years in a row. Everyone that was at the shelter last night was there first thing and was blown away by this awesome trail magic.  What a way to start the day!  Hemlock is planning a thru hike in 2016 and Freak is finishing the last of his section hiking this summer, good luck to both of them!

What a spread!

Hemlock on the left, Freak on the right

Everyone is enjoying this magic!

People are too busy eating to pose for a picture

Left to right: Nature Girl, Starface, (not sure), Lady, Trucknuts,  BLine, Dip'n'sip, Srocket, Shady, Guru

All the awesome food powered us through the first half of the day.  We spent it mostly walking the ridgeline around the caldera and I actually managed to get a couple views of God's Thumbprint as we circled the top of it.  The whole morning alternated between rain and sun in about 20-30 minute increments.  As a result the rocky hike along the ridgeline was slick and a few close calls were had by all.

Looking down from the edge of God's Thumbprint

God's Thumbprint

God's Thumbprint

Dip'n'sip and Why Not both got ahead early in the day and we didn't see them for most of it.  Srocket and I leapfrogged each other a number of times.  She and I stopped for lunch at Jenkins shelter along with Guru, Twigs, Starface and Lady.  It was raining pretty hard when we finished and we may have delayed our return to hiking for a little while in the warm and dry confines of the shelter.

Some shelter privies are not as fancy as others

The afternoon was more sun than rain and was quite pleasant.  We walked along a ridge for a lot of it with the occasional big down and up to switch ridges or to cross roads.  Just like clockwork though, again when we were about four miles out the thunderstorm hit and we encountered torrential rain.

Stream crossing

View from a ridge

Further along the same ridge

We crossed our fifth Interstate today I-77.  In the process we had to do a short roadwalk to get to the overpass.  As I was walking along getting completely drenched I noticed two hikers standing under the overhang of a church entrance taking shelter from the storm and decided to join them and try to wait out the weather.  The hikers were Avocado and Rocket and they were talking about hitching to Bland for dinner at Subway.  We were joined shortly by an equally drenched Srocket and Lady who agreed that Subway sounded fantastic in the current situation.

We were just getting ready to brave the weather to stick out a thumb when a car came driving up.  "Want a cookie?", the lady behind the wheel asked.  We were too busy eagerly taking her up on the offer (they were still warm from the oven by the way) that we completely forgot to ask for a ride.  A nice gentleman in a pickup came along shortly though and brought us to Subway.  Warming up and partially drying off in a heated sub shop while eating real food was just the ticket for the rainy afternoon.

After finishing up we no sooner left the Subway building and three cars pull over, including the cookie lady, to ask if we want a ride.  Srocket, Rocket and myself wanted to get back on the trail and Avocado and Lady wanted to stay in town so we split and got a ride back to the church to continue up the trail, not before picking up a twelve pack of beer first though.

It was a steep climb up to the shelter, but at least the rain had stopped.  I think we had envisioned ourselves lauded as heros when we walked into camp with beer, but instead everyone was already asleep.  It was 8:15, not even dark yet...  So the three of us set up our tents and enjoyed the beverages we had worked so hard to lug up to the shelter.   Rocket is from Texas and is doing a flip flop hike and having done the northern half already he only has about 380 miles to go.  Even we didn't make it past 10 which in the normal world is a pretty early time to retire on a Saturday night, but hikers need their sleep!