June 4

Biggest day yet

So, today started just like any other day.  Up around 8, on the trail by 9.  Yeah, we're not the early bird crowd that's for sure.  Beautiful weather.  I have done this section of trail in the past too.  Nice and easy hiking over Tar Jacket Ridge.  We knocked out about 8 miles to the Seely-Woodworth shelter.  We decided to keep going, since Spy Rock was only 2 miles further, and that would be a better place to stop for lunch.  It was really windy up there but the 360 degree views from the top of the rock made for an awesome lunch spot.  We took a break for about an hour, and by this time it was after 1pm.  During our break, for some unholy reason, we talked about how cool it would be to do a marathon toady.  We joked about not getting and early start this morning, taking lots of breaks today including an hour for lunch, but we set our sights on the Three Ridges Mountain area regardless.  After lunch, we had a climb up The Priest.  We rocked it like it was nothing.  When we got up to the shelter there at the summit, I called my buddy in Charlottesville, Nate, and he wanted to come up to meet us just ahead down the trail.  We flew down other side of The Priest, and saw a double rainbow along the way.  I know what you're thinking:  "double rainbow!?!  OMG!  what does it mean???  it's so intense!"  HAHA.  We came out of The Priest Wilderness, to the parking area on Rt 56 next to the Tye River, around 7pm.  Nate pulled up with his wife Jenn and their min-pin Vegas, and one of my other former co-workers, Debbie.  I was hoping they had brought some Gatorades or something.  But Nate went way over the top for us.  We sat in the parking lot, he fired up the charcoal grill he had brought, and we feasted on pork chops, hot dogs, BBQ chicken, potato salad, and yes even Gatorade.  Nate and I shotgunned a beer for old times sake.  Ridiculous trail magic!  Apache, Rainbow Eyes, and I stayed there until 10pm, then we got all packed up again to start hiking.  We still had another 8 miles or so to complete our marathon.  Tonight was the full moon, so that helped us rationalize our decision.  Little did we realize, that the moonlight wouldn't help us at all, since we were under the darkness of leaf cover for most of the hike.  Oh well.  Climbing and more climbing up to Harpers Creek shelter.  We stopped to fill up on water to get us through the next section in the Three Ridges Wilderness.  The climb up Three Ridges Mountain was grueling.  We took lots of breaks.  At least doing this at night gave us cooler temperatures.  We got to the view at Chimney Rocks around midnight, struggling, but still in relatively good spirits.  Mostly we joked about how stupid we were for doing this.  We should have planned ahead before doing this.  Oh well, we were committed at this point.  I really felt like a 'trail boss' for doing this.  Around 2:30am, we got over the summit of the mountain, down to the overlook at Hanging Rock, totally spent.  The mood had definitely changed.  No more wise-cracks and jokes.  Just shear exhaustion.  We rested on the rock there for a few minutes, having completed our 26.2 mile marathon.  We continued on for another couple miles to get to the shelter area at Maupin Field.  We got there around 3:30am and set up our tents and passed out.  We had just completed a 28.1 mile day, over what is arguably the toughest terrain in the state of Virginia.  Just another day on the AT!

On Spy Rock