May 25

700

Not sure why, but hiking this morning was tough.  Only about 1000 feet of climbing over 4 miles or so up to the area around Dragon's Tooth.  It took a lot of of me though.  The trail was just really rocky and rugged.  Took the side trail to the rock pinnacle of Dragon's Tooth with Earthling and Yodeler, and climbed up to the top of the spire.  Nice break there drying out my sweat soaked shirt in the sun, and taking in the great views.  The trail past Dragon's Tooth was really tough.  In some places you were basically standing on top of a rock face next to a white blaze, then you could look 15 feet down the rock, and see another blaze below.  And it's like, okay, there's the next blaze, here's this huge rocky drop, good luck.  Toss your poles down, and start to shimmy, butt-slide, whatever you can do to get down.  In some places there were steel rungs bolted into the rock so you could use them like a ladder to get down.  It was really tough on the knees getting through those two miles or so.  In the afternoon, I hiked past the 700 mile mark!  Shortly after that point, I came to a road crossing that went about a mile to Catawba, Va.  I had burned a ton of calories today.  I was famished, and incredibly thirsty.  I went down to a gas station there and downed a couple large Gatorades, a few sodas, and inhaled three hotdogs, and a bag of chips.  After getting back on the trail again, I ran into Thirsty and Bush Googles, and we headed north down the trail to a campsite just past Catawba Mountain shelter.  Along the way to the shelter we got some trail magic from some locals, Sunchips, M&M cookies, and Gatorades.  Awesome!  We got our tents set up and headed to bed, because we have some big plans for tomorrow.  Just under 15 miles today.

On top of Dragon's Tooth