Virginia is for (Alpaca) Lovers: Days 42 - 48

Day 42: 7.3 miles hiked (trail mile 471)

A couple miles outside of town we encountered Blue Jacket on trail and ended up hiking with him all the way down to Damascus. We all stopped at the local diner with our packs on the way to our hostel and ate veggie burgers at the patio tables out front.

Once checked into our hostel we visited the two outfitters down the street to survey the selection, and then took a short nap in our room before making our way to the local Food City grocery store. It was a pretty, flat walk to the store on a trail next to the river. The store had a surprisingly good selection. We probably bought way more food than we will be able to eat while in town but will give it our best try. Leaving the store, we were absolutely loaded down with bags, and a guy pulled over almost immediately to offer us a ride back to our hostel about 1.5 miles away. We accepted gratefully and rode with him and chatted with windows down all the way back to our hostel.

For dinner I made a huge veggie and tofu stir fry while Chris repackaged food from the store. Repackaging food is a whole ordeal since you don’t want all the extra packaging weighing down your pack and taking up space! It’s a satisfying task, and something I’m honestly going to miss when I’m back in the real world. It also makes us hyper aware of just how much unnecessary waste food packaging creates…

Day 43: 5 miles hiked (trail mile 477)

First thing in the morning I sprayed our hiking clothes and tent base with permethrin in anticipation of the higher volumes of black flies, ticks, and mosquitos that spring will bring. It is still early in the season, but we figured why not be prepared. After, we made a lovely breakfast at the hostel and prepared for a day of logistics. “Nearos” (near zeros) are not very restful but are still a chance for our bodies to take a break from lugging around the backpack weight.

I walked to the outfitter down the road and replaced my Superfeet insoles which are supposed to be replaced every 500 miles. My feet had started to recognize every rock and root beneath them, and I pulled out my insoles in Damascus only to discover that they were absolutely crushed in certain places… offering almost no protection. It feels amazing to have fresh cushion in my shoes. Chris needs to replace his La Sportivas shoes soon; they have both blown out on the sides. My Solomons may have another few hundred miles in them, especially now that I have new insoles. I’ve been really impressed by the build and durability of this shoe, especially watching many Altra users replace their shoes after only 300-400 miles.

We decided to ship home some of our gear that we barely ever use, including some of the winter gear that we hardly touched even when it was at its coldest. This shaved 4.5 lbs off our packs! Good thing, too, because we are packing out an absurd amount of good food this time, including a half-full gallon bag of vegetable stir-fry leftovers, hummus, vegan cream cheese, bagels, a gallon bag of spinach, and other fresh goodies.

We left town around 4pm by way of the AT and Virginia Creeper biking trail which run parallel to one another, occasionally merging into one, for the next dozen miles or so. About 6 miles in we stopped at golden hour at a campsite tucked right between the AT and the Virginia Creeper Trail. It was a beautiful site, near a bridged creek. This was after skipping over a campsite that a Guthooks user had commented something to the effect of, “this used to be such a nice campsite until all those people were murdered”. Pretty good trick to deter campers if you asked me… I wasn’t going to take any chances. We dined on cold veggie stir fry from a ziploc bag with hummus and ritz crackers.

Our food bags were so stuffed that we couldn’t even close them completely, but we figured out a trick for hoisting the rope that made a huge difference. Once the string was looped over a strong branch, I wrapped the end we needed to tie off around my trekking pole and just walked it back as far as I could, wrapping the string around a tree a few times before tying it off. This method is going to be a game changer! Tonight’s lows are in the 40’s so we are going to try sharing one quilt, draped over the both of us.

Day 44: 15.7 miles hiked (trail mile 492.7)

Breakfast this morning consisted of the last of our cold veggie stir fry leftovers, scooped straight from the gallon bag with ritz crackers and vegan cream cheese. A weird breakfast, but nourishing—and that’s what matters. The hike was beautiful though uneventful. We hiked along the Virginia Creeper trail for a short section where the trails overlap and families on bicycles whizzed past us. At one point in the woods, I spooked a wild turkey, and it flew off through the trees, thumping its wings heavily to carry its large body into the air. We also ran into a section hiker who caught a rainbow trout in the creek.

During the last leg of our hike, we crossed a bald just a few miles below Mount Rogers. It had begun to rain, and the winds picked up right as we crossed it. We were rewarded with a glorious double-rainbow that touched the very mountaintop we were on; how amazing it was to see the end of a rainbow!

We stopped to camp at a large, designated camping area and ended up with a lumpy site down the hill. Ever the last ones into camp we often end up with the least desirable site. We ate the last of our perishables and strung up the bear bag before sleep.

Day 45: 17.5 miles hiked (trail mile 510.2)

Only a few miles into our hike this morning we came across a public trash can at a parking lot before crossing into the ascent to Mount Rogers. We joyously dumped our trash weight (it’s the little things!) and hiked up to Thomas Knob shelter with extra spring in our step. Here we encountered the much-anticipated herd of wild ponies.

The parks service introduced the ponies to the Grayson Highlands in the 60’s as hardy range animals that could graze the balds. They free-range in a huge territory and are obviously comfortable with backpackers and dayhikers. A few are almost friendly, while most seem to keep their distance merely out of disinterest. A particularly food-motivated one ate a carrot that we had packed out right out of Chris’s hand and let me touch its mane!

There are incredible campsites all over the Grayson highlands, and we mused that this would be the perfect section to return to and backpack with friends or family on a shorter trip.

We enjoyed our hike through the highlands very much, and as we hiked on, we were met with spectacular views and wild ponies everywhere. Around mid-day we also crossed the 500-mile mark! Later we clamored through Fat Man Squeeze with our packs and hiked through a short section of Greyson Highlands State Park.

At the next shelter we ran into Monchichi, a solo hiker we first met back in Damascus at our hostel. She was receiving a tongue-bath from a bold pony who has figured out that thruhikers are basically walking salt-licks.

We hiked on to Old Orchard Shelter, eyeing a storm off in distance that had been threatening to form all day. The last six rocky miles of our day absolutely wrecked our feet so it was a relief to finally hobble into camp. At our tent site we tried a delicious backpacker meal dessert cobbler by Alpine Air and ate trail mix for dinner… because we can! It started raining as soon as we finished up our chores and got in our tent. Perfect timing.

Day 46: 14.1 mikes hiked (trail mile 524.3)

It rained all night and winds rattled our tent but we both slept well. We broke down our damp tent and left camp around 9. Luckily, we enjoyed nice weather all morning despite the storm clouds still looming in the distance and hiked strong all day. The terrain was much better than yesterday’s rocky trail, so our feet are happy again. We did a little 1.5-mile road-walking section because of an official reroute due to a downed bridge.

At about 3pm the rains arrived, and we hiked another couple miles before deciding to stop at the nearest shelter for the night in anticipation of the coming storm.

Attempting to hang dry our clothes as our tent is battered by rain

We pitched our tent a little way uphill from the shelter at a site that looked like water would run off rather than pool and got to call it an early night - all camp chores completed by 6pm.

Virginia has been such a treat after Tennessee which was incredibly minimal in terms of trail resources. Someone told us that Tennessee folk believe in roughing it, which certainly seems plausible. Whatever the reason, Tennessee makes up for its bare-bones resources with the incredible natural beauty and mountain balds. In stark contrast, every shelter we have encountered so far in Virginia has bear boxes and nice privies. The shelters appear well constructed; each one is architecturally unique.

Day 47: 12.1 miles hiked (trail mile 536.4)

It rained hard most of the night but tapered off and eventually stopped a few hours before dawn. Love it when this happens. We took a couple hours to lay in our tent and read while our gear dried out a bit.

Chris hung all his wet clothes on his pack to let them dry in the wind!

On our hike today we crossed paths with another nonvenomous snake that was in the middle of a hunt! It was an easy 9.5-mile hike to the Partnership Shelter, also known as the Pizza Shelter, because it is located near the Mt. Rogers Natl. Rec. HQ which has a free landline phone outside that hikers can use to call for pizza delivery.

Not ones to pass up the opportunity for extra calories, we ordered an extra-large supreme pizza with no cheese, with salads and onion rings. When it arrived, we doused it with nutritional yeast and bacon bits and gulped down the entire thing. Since the pizza shelter didn’t allow tenting, we decided to push on to the next tent site and call it an early night since we only have about 10 miles to go tomorrow to reach the alpaca farm we’ll be camping at. We found a good site about 2.5 miles in and decided not to push our luck since this section has so many dead trees which can make campsite selection challenging.

Day 48: 9.4 miles hiked (trail mile 545.8)

This morning the trail went right past an early settler’s museum and schoolhouse. The museum was closed for the winter, but the schoolhouse was open for anyone to step inside and look around. I suspect hikers may shelter here from time to time.

All day we hiked through beautiful spring scenery: tiny white flowers powdered the ground like snow and yellow swallowtail butterflies danced all around.

During a short boardwalk section of the trail, we saw an alligator snapping turtle the size of a toilet seat cover (thank Ranger for this analogy, accurate albeit weird) beneath the swampy waters. Exiting this section, we encountered our first directly-on-trail gas station/convenient store. Here we picked up some snacks to fuel our short hike up to our hostel, a functioning alpaca farm called the Long Neck Lair.

Since the hostel (more like an Airbnb, but the hostel is in the works) was full, we set up our tent on the side of the house where we would have some protection from the winds. The owners’ daughter, Meghan, gave us a tour of the property and we got to meet the alpacas. A couple of them let us scratch their necks!

At the hostel we got to know Cornpop and Suzanne a bit, who we have bumped into a few times over the last few days. Suzanne cooked and dehydrated most of her food before leaving for the trail and is receiving shipments all the way up the trail so she can continue eating plant-based, and sustainably, while on her thruhike. So inspiring!

My generous aunt Pammy, who has worked tirelessly to locate a vaccine for us, sent us a link to a vaccine finder and we managed to secure a couple slots for the J&J one-shot vaccine in Marion for the day after tomorrow! The pharmacist was super accommodating and even listed our address as the pharmacy’s own to help us be considered eligible as residents of Virginia. Once we secured our appointments Cyndi, the owner of Long Neck Lair, drove us into town to resupply at Ingles.

Back at the Hostel that evening we met a lovely couple from Lehigh, PA who were road tripping to Tennessee. They invited us to contact them when we get to their area for some trail magic and a place to stay!