Racing Diego to Pearisburg Pt. 2

“Dude, I think I’ve got an ear infection!”

It’s COLD in the morning, and Mule is hurting.  It’s after 8:00, but none of us are in a hurry to go out into the frigid world, Gritty included.  Mule thinks he has an inner ear infection and needs antibiotics.  Gritty says that if we continue north a couple of miles, there’s a shuttle pickup to a local hostel.  Maybe they’ll have medicine, or at least a way to get Mule to an urgent care or an ER?

I am the first to brave a peek outside.  And WOW- it snowed while we slept!  Looks like 3-4 inches.  

It’s probably about 15 degrees outside, and the wind chill is around zero.

I head for the privy.

The privy has no door, and the open front faces directly into the wind.  Until you’ve experienced swirling subzero wind chill on your nether regions, you haven’t lived.  I made the quickest privy visit of all time while pondering how quickly testicular frostbite can occur.

It’s not a whole lot warmer back in the “shelter.”

We decide to take Gritty’s advice to get off the trail to Garden Mountain Hostel.  The hike down the mountain is beautiful, and the world seems eerily quiet, the way that it always is after a good snow.

We are heading down to Burke’s Garden, known to the locals as “God’s Thumbprint.”  It is a bowl-like 8 x 4 mile fertile depression that resembles a crater.  There is limited road access.  Back in the day, the locals there rebuffed the Vanderbilt estate and wouldn’t sell them land to build their big vacation home, which ended up being built in North Carolina (Biltmore).  The story behind the name is that a surveyor named Burke threw away some potato peelings, and when the survey party returned a year later they found potatoes growing.

We hiked down to the Walker Gap road and called for a pickup.  It didn’t take Farmer long to fetch us and drive us a few miles northeast to the hostel.  Before that, we were offered a hitch by a nice snowplow driver.

As far as hostels go, Garden Mountain was somewhat spartan but well-equipped.  Our upstairs room had 2 clean beds and access to a solid bathroom.  Downstairs was a kitchen and living room area with a wood stove.  Garden Mountain is actually a working farm as well, and Farmer had duties with pigs and sheep.

I celebrated our warm surroundings with a cold one courtesy of the house.

The combination of losing elevation and gaining warmth had Mule’s ear feeling better.  Which was a good thing, because we discovered that he had forgotten his wallet.  No money to pay for a doctor’s visit, and no ID to pick up medications with.  He was nonetheless pretty wiped out and decided rest would do him about as much good as antibiotics.

I spent the afternoon napping in front of the wood stove and playing with Wanda the Dog.  

By evening, Mule was feeling much better.  We decided to cook our planned trail dinner in the hostel kitchen.

While Farmer and his helper Hippie made chili for themselves, Mule and I feasted on African Peanut Stew with Pelau Rice.  SO good.  Hippie scarfed our leftovers and gave it two thumbs up.

Hippie gave me a PBR for an after-dinner libation, and lightweight that I am, I got sleepy.  We were asleep before 9:00.  Day 4: a meager 1.5 miles.

Mule felt much better the following morning.  We were anxious to return to the trail, and arranged for a shuttle from Bubba to Suiter Rd/VA615, which would put us a little further up the trail but allow us to keep to our itinerary.  While Farmer took care of farm chores, we hung out with Hippie for a bit.  Hippie had been up all night on a spiritual quest.  I suspect there may have been mycological aids on his quest.

A SOBO thru-hiker named Pony Keg must’ve arrived after we fell asleep, and he was leaving earlier than us.  He was proud of his HMG pack, which looked like it had held up to the rigors of a thru-hike very well.

While we waited for Bubba to arrive, I toured the grounds and took some pictures.  It was a classic farm setting, made even prettier by the snow.

Bubba arrived around 10:30 and dropped us off close to 11:30.  There are no direct roads to anywhere in Burke’s Garden, so we weaved up and over at least one mountain before reaching our destination.  I was surprised at the good condition of the forest roads.

During our stay, we had received word of Winter Storm Diego racing across the country, with Virginia right in its crosshairs.  We checked the AT weather website, and it was only predicting modest snow for our final night, so we still planned to stick to….our plans.  But we were concerned.

So anyway, from Suiter Rd. we had over 9 miles to hike, and it was nearly lunchtime.  But it was Day 5, we were rested, and suddenly we had TRAIL LEGS!  We hoofed it over a 600 foot climb and then cruised on some friendly trail for 4-5 miles before another 500 foot climb that brought us into view of Bland.  We were excited, because Bland had a new resupply spot right on the trail.  Somewhere along the way we passed a nice vista.

At 2:40 we reached the Brushy Mountain Outpost to our right just as we reached a road.  Yes, we had just hiked 6.9 miles in a little over 3 hours.  That’s about an average speed for your typical thru-hiker, but it qualified as a scorching pace for Mule and myself.

While not all that impressive from the outside, we knew what was inside- a GRILL.  As in, greasy burgers!

The shelves were a little bit bare with it being late in the hiking season, but we saw evidence that a thru-hiker could do a solid resupply there.  They carried all the basics- ramen, Idahoan, pouches of tuna, various bars, etc.

We weren’t interested in that though.  We were on a mission for grease, and we scored.  We were lucky too in that they were just starting their winter hours, and would be closing in 20 minutes.  If we had arrived to a closed outpost I might have sat in their parking lot and cried.

I ponied up for a bacon cheeseburger, cajun fries and a large Powerade, which I devoured while recharging my phone.

It turned out that my strange food craving for this week was ketchup, not normally something that excites me.

We left the store around 3;30 and, following a road crossing of I-77, made quick work of the 2.5 miles to Helvey’s Mill Shelter, which was on a 0.3 mile side trail.  While we walked this trail we grabbed firewood.

Nobody else was there when we arrived.  What was waiting at the shelter were stacks of small sticks under the shelter- dry wood!  Mule had carried a stash of fatwood we found a couple of days earlier, and he quickly got a nice fire going.  Which was nice, because as the sun went down it got COLD.

We were both still full from our burgers, so we just had some snacks for dinner.  Mule went to get water, and then we dried out our shoes and socks over the fire.  Around 7:00 we turned in.  Before doing so, we checked the weather forecast again.  It was getting worse.  Day 5:  9.4 miles.

In the morning (this is now Friday) we texted Neville and learned that Diego was currently forecast to drop at least a foot of snow at Wapiti Shelter, where we planned to be, on Saturday night.  She was insistent that “we have to get you guys off the trail.”  A foot of snow would have been interesting to hike out in, but I knew that we would be unable to drive home from Woods Hole in those conditions, so we had no choice but to bail.  We debated whether to hike a few miles further to a road crossing, or to hike back to Bland.  Mule had not slept well, not being able to get warm at all during the night, and he was about done, so we hiked back to VA612 just north of the interstate crossing at Bland.

While we waited, we noticed a funny sign posted over a large garbage can.

There were no dead bodies in the can, but we did smell out two rotting deer carcasses a short distance away in the creek.  Harf.

We were expecting Neville to pick us up at 10:00, but at 10:10 we heard the familiar sputter of Bubba’s vehicle and its failing transmission.

It took over an hour to reach Woods Hole.  Neville put us in a nice room upstairs.  We were the only hikers there for the day.

It was now lunchtime, and we were hungry.  Neville graciously let me use her kitchen to cook up what would have been dinner the previous night- Indian Butter Chicken.  This might’ve been my favorite meal of the trip.

Neville said she had to run to the Amish store to do errands, but suggested that we all go to Pearisburg for dinner that night.  We agreed and offered to treat her for being such a nice hostess.

While she was gone, we took a nap and then explored the old log house structure.  They have a really cool living room with a wood stove and library that contained many volumes on the AT, self-sufficient living, herbal medicine, wilderness foraging and other topics that might be of interest to hikers.

Neville was a little late getting back, but unlike most women she only took 5 minutes to get ready, and then we were off to Pearisburg….for a Korean dinner.  I LOVE Asian food, and I certainly wasn’t expecting to find any in the little town of Pearisburg, but let me tell you, the Kal-Bee was LEGIT.  We had dumpling and an amazing shrimp pancake for appetizers.

After that, we split orders of barbecued flank steak and bibimbap, the portions of which were absolutely huge.

I was rather torporous after this meal, but I managed to hold the boxed leftovers without spilling anything while Neville drove us back to the hostel. At which point it was straight to bed.  BTW, there was a cat waiting for me in my bed.  And it wouldn’t leave.  Day 6:  LOLOLOL 1.7 miles.  Trip total:  35.9 miles.

We got up early the next morning, paid Neville for our lodging as well as for some of her nice custom pottery bowls and mugs, and began the boring 6 hour drive back to Alabama. We hated leaving Woods Hole.  It’s reputation as one of if not THE best hostel on the AT is well-deserved.

It was kind of disappointing that a planned 75 mile section hike had been cut in half due to illness and weather, but on the other hand we’d had some great experiences and met some even better people, so we still counted this a positive week.  It reiterates what I’ve learned about how you need to be flexible and roll with the flow of the journey instead of being hung up on schedules and miles.  I definitely love the satisfaction of completing an end-to-end section hike. But unlike most thru-hikers, I’m on a limited schedule, and don’t have a flex day or two built in to allow me to adjust to illness or whatever. The parts of the trail we didn’t get to hike will still be waiting for us another day. But you better believe that one day when I get to schedule longer and more epic trips, I’m gonna build in several of those flex days, because when I get a chance to do a bucket list hike I’m damn sure going to get it done.