
| Excerpts from the journal:
Towards afternoon, I came to Elkwallow Gap, one of the Facilities along Skyline Drive and indulged in the hedonism of running water and a Camp Store. The trail in this section was somehow reminiscent of arid westcoast vegetation--dry, sandy soil, short pine trees in a fairly open forest. Not at all what I expected from northern Virginia. By the end of the day, after an unplanned 16 miles, I was pretty well hurting and ready to quit. The sun was lowering and I was starting to hallucinate when I pulled into Pass Mountain Hut, the southern terminus of the northern third of the AT through SNP. There I was greeted by New Hip, a fellow AT section hiker and a couple of through-hikers with their two large dogs (never did get their names). She explained to me that the her pack had been stolen back at Harper's Ferry and they were 'stopping here awhile' while Jake, her husband, took a construction job in the valley below to raise some funds. Meanwhile she was hanging out at camp with the dogs laying in provisions. Provisions, in this case, seemed to be quite a large stock of dried, smoked turkey jerky, shark jerky (of all things), and dried vegetables. Not the kind of people I usually meet through-hiking... but to each his own. |