Day 62: Two months!

Hiked 22.9 miles, camping at Harrison Spring.

Today marks two full months on the trail!  Everyone woke up and got out of camp at different times today.  We hoofed it to the first shelter and stopped for water before continuing on.  The trail bent away from the Blue Ridge Parkway for most of the day and we were in a little more remote stretch.  The terrain was somewhat hilly but overall not a horrible day in that regard.

Early morning view from near the top of Cove Mountain

9 AM photo

Late in the morning we stopped in at Bryant shelter to regroup and get water.  This shelter is interesting as most in this area are only rated for 6 people and this one was rated for 20!  The designations are always really low and you can almost always close to double the number  of the rating to get the actual number you can fit.  We had thought about planning our days to stay here and I'm glad we didn't.  While it was cool to see, I would rather last night's site any day.

Bryant shelter

 Right after this shelter was the biggest climb of the day and it was really nice to get it out of the way before lunch.  I caught up with Why Not and Dip'n'sip both there.  While we were there UV and Wholebean walked in with their dog.  Most dogs on the trail wear saddlebags and carry their own food and water.  The dog decided it needed to roll in the dirt but forgot that it still had the saddlebags on.  It flipped upside down and sat there waving his legs around like an upside down turtle until someone went over and helped him flip over. It was very entertaining for everyone.

Black Rock Overlook

 After lunch we continued on our way.  We finally got some decent views from Blackrock overlook and Thunder Mountain.  At the top of Thunder Mountain was another FAA tower which was cool although we didn't get to go inside this one.  On the way up Thunder Mountain I was stopped trying to decide if I wanted to do the 1.1 mile side trail to Old Orchard Falls.  It is a 200 foot waterfall which would be spectacular to see, but 2.2 extra miles involving a steep hill was just not motivating me.  I finally made the decision when up the trail came Clevergirl and Dumptruck who had taken a day off to day hike with their parents.  They had gone to the falls and showed me pictures, then offered some trail magic if I wanted to walk .1 back to their car with them.  They packed out my trash and gave me an ice cold Gatorade.  Good decision.

Apple Orchard Mountain

Apple Orchard Mountain

FAA tower on Apple Orchard Mountain

 We finally saw Srocket at the end of the day.  We had hung out at Thunder Hill Shelter for a while and were heading out when she came strolling down the trail.  Together we walked the last few miles to the campsite.  On the way we passed Rosy Eagle who we haven't seen for a long time.  He was headed the wrong way and when questioned he said he had heard there was trail magic at a parking area about a half mile back and dropped his pack to go see.  This was tempting but at this point we had gone far enough downhill that we didn't want to go back.  Hope he enjoyed it.

I'm about to be chopped by "The Guillotine"

Looking back at "The Guillotine" after passing underneath

 The campsite is small and a lot of people came here to stay.  We squeezed everyone in but it is packed close.  I haven't seen this many tents in close proximity to each other since the first week on the trail.  There are only about 10 tents but we probably all squeezed into a half of a volleyball court worth of room.  There was a fire which was nice and while sitting around it, one of the hikers walked in and asked if there were four hikers by the names of Why Not, Srocket, BLine and Dip'n'sip here.  When we raised our hands he threw us each a rice krispee treat and said it was trail magic from Lady.  We don't get trail magic by name very often, that was pretty cool!

Thunder Mountain Overlook

Looking left from the above picture

Tent city at Harrison Spring campsite