It's Good To Be SOBO

Peak here, giving y’all a good ole’ update from Southwest Virginia. This update is mainly from our most recent stretch of the trail, Roanoke to Damascus, VA. Roughly 680 miles have been covered since beginning our thru hike and we have been averaging over 15 miles a day along the way. What a crazy thought to think about! It seems like yesterday that we were gearing up for this adventure and to think we are now more than a fourth of the way through it is kind of frightening. Doesn’t take an expert to prove that time really does fly when you are having fun. 

We took a few days in Roanoke to slack pack the trail and to hang out with our friend, Tommy, and my sister, Maria. We hiked over the famous MacAfees Knob in some clouds but still had a great time. 
  
Dragons Tooth is another famous mountain in the area, and the top is considered the toughest mile in Virginia due to the boulder climbing required. It was amazing and we saw some of the best views in Southern VA.

  

   

On April 9th, TeaTime and I were on our way to being dropped off at the trail head by my mom. Just as we were leaving, we stopped by my grandfathers house to say goodbye. He must have been prepared to go somewhere already because just as we pulled up in my mom’s car, my grandfather steps out of the front door, and says ‘so much for 7am’ (the time we had thought we were leaving). My mom invites him in and we four take off again to the trail head. I’d like to quickly point out how much I love my grandfather. He has never passed an opportunity to volunteer in his community and has been honored by many organizations in the Roanoke area for his passion for giving back. He is an inspiration and a hero of mine. 

We ran up and down the first few climbs of the day feeling refreshed and strong. We were missing the trail even just after a day or two of not hiking, and it felt good to be back on the AT. 

We got to the shelter after 15 miles and set up our home for the night. The shelter was to ourselves and we were shocked to see that the infamous ‘bubble’ of other hikers hadn’t taken over this shelter quite yet. Our dinner was the delicious and easy-to-make dehydrated meals. My wonderful brother and sister-in-law gave us some of these backpacker meals for Christmas and we knew they would come in handy one day. (Thank you Nathan and Francesca!). Just as we were settling in our sleeping bags for the night, a hiker rolled in. His name was Red Robin and he started late March in Georgia and had already made it to nearly Roanoke. Averaging more than 20 miles a day, he needed to finish his thru hike by mid-July to be able to start medical school. We chatted for half an hour or so and we wished him well on his adventure on trail before med school. He set up his tent nearby and TeaTime and I fell asleep almost immediately. 

We have various chores and routines that are becoming easier and easier to do as the days go by. In the mornings, one of us will break down our sleeping pads and sleeping bags as the other unhooks the bear-bag and starts the water boiling for oatmeal and coffee. During a snack break on trail, one of us will get water from a near by creek while the other one may get out the food or may look up our next big climb in our guidebook. In the evenings when we get to camp/shelter, one of us will set up our sleeping bags and sleeping pads while the other looks for a bear-bag or maybe starts the water boiling for dinner. I have to say, being together on trail is awesome. We are learning so much about each other and how well we work together. It is great when we balance each others strengths out and we are more productive and more happy as a result. We’ve really only had one argument on the trail so far and it had to do with me passing gas too close to TeaTime while hiking. I know that may be too much information for some, but if you know us then you know we joke around a lot and we try not to take life too seriously. About ten minutes after that argument, we kissed and laughed about how silly we were to be mad at each other for such a small thing.

        

We left the shelter around 8am and said bye to Red Robin. We knew it was going to be a warm day because by 10am we were already sweating in the open farm fields of Virginia. We made it to the largest Oak tree in the southern part of the AT, Keffer Oak Tree.

                     
It was beautiful and the late sunrise was hitting the bark in such a glorious way that you would have thought a spotlight was projected on it. The cows from the nearby pasture came up to us thinking we had food for them and at that point we went on hiking. Our day wasn’t too bad until the last hour or so. We wanted to make the 22 miles that day before sunset but it was getting close. It was around 5pm and we still had 4 more miles to go. The terrain in our guidebook made it seem like an easy ridge line walk to the shelter but instead we got a boulder scramble. The rocks on the trail are unavoidable but there are some rocks that are preferred more than others. These were mostly 1-2 feet wide and are not the most stable. Meaning, you couldn’t use your trekking poles to balance the whole 4 mile stretch. We were exhausted by the time we got to that shelter. It was getting dark and there were already two other hikers set up inside. We shoved as much food in us and crashed for the night, taking ibuprofen for dessert. 

‘Thunderstorms were coming’, that was the word around the trail and were getting more and more nervous. Each NOBO (northbound hiker) we crossed that next day was greeted with some small talk about the weather headed our direction. Without service, I couldn’t find out what time of day the thunderstorms would hit us so I ended up asking as many different hikers possible. My nerves were calmed a bit when we were learning that the consensus was the thunderstorms would come the following day and come mid-afternoon. With the sun shinning for now, and a beautiful easy ridge line walk to our next camp spot, we basically skipped our way to the afternoon. We sat and sang a song about reaching our 500th mile and I posted it to my Instagram that moment since there was service on that mountain. We carried on our way, hiking to our campsite. Within about 5 minutes, a dog appeared out of no where and starts to follow us. The dog had a collar on but no information on it. His eyes were red and he was panting so much from being dehydrated. We named him Loud Mouth from his loud panting. There was no water source on top of that mountain for miles. We felt bad for the dog but he wasn’t harming us. There was a man and two women who passed us and said that dog was theirs so we figured the dog would eventually follow them instead of us. Five miles later and halfway down the mountain, the dog was still with us and we finally made it to a stream.



 The dog was so over heated that he just sat in the water while we called the local sheriff to see anyone would help pick this pup up. The sheriff didn’t help much and told us that ‘there was a dog that often followed hikers on that mountain and he would probably leave in the middle of the night to go back home’. I asked the sheriff ‘what happens if the dog stays and never leaves’, and he replied, ‘well then you’ve got yourselves a dog’ and laughed. We didn’t want this cute dog to follow us all the way to Georgia. But we let him follow us to the campsite and as we were setting up our tent, a few hikers passed us heading northbound back up the mountain. We told them the dog wasn’t ours and he may start following them. Just as we were saying this, the young woman says to her boyfriend, ‘aw babe get out one of our Slim Jims’. TeaTime and I looked at each other and smiled. The young couple and the dog skipped away happily back up the mountain. We were so relieved to not have the dog under our wings and so glad we never fed it. Hopefully the sheriff was right and he made it home that night.

The next morning, we start hiking at 5am to make it into Pearisburg to restock our food and then make it the next shelter before the crazy thunderstorms roll in. We awoke to the most beautiful blanket of stars we’ve seen on the trail yet and I wish I had a picture to show you all. We were the first people at Food Lion at 7am on a Sunday and we luckily caught a ride with the cool owners of a nearby hostel, Angels Rest. We made the steep climb up the mountain after restocking and made it to the shelter by 2pm. There were already two older gentleman and two dogs there to claim the most popular spots of the shelter, the two end sides. One hiker had two large husky dogs and he frequently spoke to the dogs like they were people too. The other hiker was named Loner Bohner and was a 77-year-old hiking the trail for the 4th time. We were secretly hoping all morning that we could have the shelter to ourselves at least until late afternoon, but sharing with these interesting hikers would at least keep us entertained. The shelter quickly filled up and we were all ready to watch the thunderstorms roll in. The rain and wind were intense and the whole night it was blowing towards us in the shelter. The temperatures dropped and we woke up to two inches of snow. April 16th- we saw snow! We parted ways with the other hikers and started our day of hiking in puddles and hiking over over-filled streams and rivers. Our shoes were soaked inside and out by the end of the day. Some of the foot bridges were torn to shreds and we were forced to step in knee-high water. Our camp site for the night was at a local grocery store in Bland County called Trent’s. We ate warm pizza and a few of the basic resupply items. We met TurtleMan, our first and only other Southbound flip flopper we’ve met since starting the trail. We filled ourselves with a pizza each and then fell asleep in a hail storm. The cold and wet day was over. 

The next few days, we hiked long days and ended up making another 100 miles by the end of the week. We were super proud of ourselves for doing 20 milers one after the other but it definitely took a tole on my feet. We woke up and left camp just north of Atkins at 5am. We got a lovely sunrise that day which helped our morale a bit after TeaTimes’ headlamp stopped working and after we nearly got lost when we couldn’t find the trail blazes. 

 

We ate breakfast at a gas station in Atkins and had the most unusual trail magic happen to us while scarfing down hostess cakes and trail mix. A guy walked up to us and handed us $4 in cash and said that was all he had and to have a good day. We were shocked and all we could say was thank you. My feet were in so much pain but that boosted our morale even more! 

We got to Marion around 3pm and quickly unloaded our stuff at the nearby motel. We asked for a nonsmoking room but the room still smelled like cigarettes. We learned that was probably the best quality motel room for the price they were giving us. Plus a bed and a warm shower was all we needed. We ate a bunch of Mexican food and just sat around for the rest of the day. My feet were still in a huge amount of pain the next day. They were cut up from dirt and grime left in the shoes from the thunderstorms earlier in the week. You learn everything the hard way out here. We didn’t have a zero day planned but we ended up staying the day to let my feet heal a bit. It worked! The one full day of rest healed my feet completely and we were ready to tackle some more miles. Right when we hit the trail we ran into TurtleMan again who was chilling by the visitor center. It was nice to see a familiar face and we shared a shelter with him that night. 

We knew rain was on our forecast for the next day or two so we planned to get to the next shelter before it started to rain. We didn’t mind the thought of setting up our tent in the rain but if we could avoid it then it seemed better to be guaranteed dry gear over possible wet gear setting up in the rain. We got to the top of the Grayson Highlands and immediately saw some longhorn cattle grazing in the blustery weather. 

 

We hiked for another 10 minutes and saw some ponies. There was a new born that must have been less than a week old because it could barely walk. It was so cute but I was freezing so we kept on hiking. TurtleMan worked in the Park last summer so he knew some people who would let him camp in dryer conditions. He invited us to camp with him but it was 2 miles out of our way and we didn’t want to add more miles than we needed to the following day. We said our goodbyes and got ready for bed. 

It was a rough morning the next day. It was cold and rainy and everything was wet. Our whole trail was turned into a creek and our feet were quick to be soaked again. We stopped for the day at the next shelter which was only 6 miles away. It filled up quick with loud NOBO hikers and I soon regretted the decision to stay put but we had already set up our beds and we were warm. We were learning how to cope with the loud bubble of NOBO hikers we were now sharing a shelter with. TeaTime and I have been so spoiled to have the trail to ourselves the first month or so that if wanted to stay in a shelter, we had to be prepared to be a little squished in. The weather was awful and the silver lining was that our sleeping bags were dry. 

We survived the night and we would never have to see those annoying hikers again! The next day seemed to be 100 times better. We packed up and left by 8am. We were headed down the mountain and out of the storm cloud we were stuck in for the last 2 days. The Grayson Highlands are supposed to be one of the most beautiful views of Virginia, where you can see more than a hundred miles in any 360 degree direction, but for us all our views were of clouds. We are definitely coming back to the Highlands sometime after our hike on a clear day! We conquered the 22 miles that took us within 5 miles of Damascus. It was mostly downhill and we even got about 20 minutes of sunshine. We set up our tent by Laurel Creek  and once again passed out immediately. 

Last day in Virginia! We got up at around 7am to birds chirping and no rain in sight. We trekked the 5 miles into town and ate so much food at a local diner that just opened that week. We got chips and queso, buffalo wings, cheeseburger, pulled pork sandwich, fries, fried shrimp, side of mac n cheese, side of green beans, side of collard greens, and three rolls covered in butter. Oh and I almost forgot the endless coffee! Loving this diet of eating anything I want and still loosing weight! We officially celebrated the end of Virginia the best way we knew how- by eating! 

TeaTime and I want to share one last thing with y’all. We are hiking for a cause and we are asking anyone who is able or willing to donate to the cause as well. It works like a walkathon and only requires a username and email. The organization is Bread For The City, a social service organization/ food bank based in DC. Both TeaTime and I have volunteered there in the past and it is a great organization. There is more information about Bread For The City at the HikeFor link. At the top of our blog’s homepage is a link to our hikefor.com profile where you all can sponsor our hike. If you are using a mobile device, the link appears as ‘More...’ underneath ‘TeaTime and Peak’ and to the right of ‘Home’. We know anyone who is taking the time to read this, is already supporting us tremendously and we want to thank you all from the bottom of our hearts- we couldn’t do it without you all!