[Spyro] Virginia

5/23/14

We're almost to the end of Virginia now, and I haven't made a single blog post on the subject. And Virginia alone comprises over a quarter of the AT! Let's see if I can summarize...

DAMASCATHON
We entered Virginia the same week as the Boston Marathon. Ari suggested that we do 26.2 miles on Marathon Monday, which we laughed off as a joke. But in fact, we ended up doing 26.3 miles past the TN/VA line and into Damascus, the quintessential trail town, that Friday. I thought I might have sprained my ankle on the way, but it was nothing that a zero day couldn't fix. Pro tip: all you can eat pancakes at the Blue Blaze Cafe, and they will serve them a la mode. MMMM.

Ponies
We climbed Mt. Rogers, the highest peak in Virginia, a few days after leaving Damascus. I went up to the (anticlimactic) summit to knock off another state high point. Mt. Rogers borders the Grayson Highlands, a beautiful section of trail with many exposed ridges and views... Oh, and wild ponies! These ponies were supposedly left alone in the wild but in practice they had seen so many humans that they were just not afraid of me. Pretty cool.

New friends on the trail
For the better part of a week, we hiked with a few new friends - Tandem, Mio, and Buzz. Buzz and Tandem were a father/daughter pair, and Mio was hiking about the same pace as them. Hiking with this new group changed up our routine quite a bit - every night, we'd teach each other new card games (including Canasta, Spades, Euchre (sp?), and Presidents) and one night we even hiked in an 18-pack of 16oz beers to enjoy and share with the other hikers. The good thing about the trail is that you get to meet a lot of new people; the downside is that your pace will never match up exactly, so you end up moving from group to group.

Ziplines
Pearisburg, VA was about 1.5 weeks after Damascus. The day we left it, we wanted to get to "The Captain's" house, who allowed hikers to camp in his yard. The catch: the yard was only accessible by zipline! Naturally, this only made us want to camp there more, so despite leaving from Pearisburg at 1pm, we still tried to make the 20 miles to The Captain's. Unfortunately, once it became clear that it was going to be a long, miserable night hike to get there, I stopped a little over a mile short to wait for Pussel-gut and make camp there instead - but we still got to play on the zipline in the morning :).

Dining in the Appalachians
One of the restaurants that we had been hearing about for weeks was called the Homeplace. It was an All You Can Eat restaurant in what used to be a nice house on a large plot of farmland. It's so popular that we waited over an hour to get in! The food is served family-style without too much variety - all of the vegetables and sides are set, and you get to choose 2 meats out of a selection of fried chicken, BBQ pork, roast beef, and ham. The dishes are brought to the table to be split among your party, and when the dish is empty, it is refilled. And refilled. As much you want. :). We had chicken, pork, biscuits, red beans, green beans, baked apples, mashed potatoes, and blackberry cobbler a la mode for dessert.
The next town that we hit was Daleville/Troutville (2 towns squished into one). Since we had already hit a "Troutdale", the naming conventions were starting to become repetitive... In any case, we continued the food adventure and had an awesome Southern barbecue dinner there with our friend Gazelle.

"Good View"
Over the course of the next week, we had 1 big climb a morning for 4 mornings straight, starting off easy and getting harder each day. The benefit was that we had some awesome views in that section! (Which was appropriate - in the middle of that week, we went into a little mountain town called Buena Vista.) The downside, of course, was that we finished off with a 3000 foot climb on the last day, with a thunderstorm that dumped down almost 4 inches of rain that day. Everything was soaked! 4 inches of rain is quite a lot, and we got to ford a river (actually, 3 rivers) for the first time the next day.

Trail Days
My parents came to meet us in Waynesboro, VA for the weekend of 5/16 and we all drove down together to Trail Days, an annual hiker bash all the way back in Damascus. I'd estimate there were at least a thousand hikers there, in addition to all the vendors and townspeople. Of particular interest were a hiker parade (featuring water guns pointed both into and out of the parade), food, craft, and gear vendors, a gigantic bonfire at night, and reunions with friends we had lost contact with on the trail. We saw Mio, Buzz, Tandem, Titty Cakes, Solo, and Gargamel, among others. It was tons of fun, and I'll try to go back another year!

Bonding Time
When we got back to Waynesboro, my mom headed back to CT, but my dad (trail name "Mtnrunner") stayed to hike with us for a few days through Shenandoah National Park. The park was a very different experience from the other trail sections, since the trail runs along Skyline Drive (filled with vacationers and day hikers), but we got to reap the benefits as well - I saw 9 bears while in the park, and the park wayside restaurants are known for their blackberry milkshakes! We got some great views from the park peaks as well. A few other hikers commented to me privately that I must have a very athletic dad to be able to keep up at our pace - and all in all, it was a great experience to share with Mtnrunner . :).

Onwards
Like I said, we're almost out of Virginia - 3 more days will take us to Harper's Ferry, WV, and from there we'll be attempting the Four State Challenge - more info on that soon.

Shoutout
I hear that the students and teachers at the Oxford Center school have been following these posts - hope you enjoy this one!

Photo Captions
State line!
Pancakes a la mode
PONIES
Grayson Highlands
Gazelle on the zipline
The Keffer Oak (largest tree on AT in the South)
View from Dragon's Tooth (an appropriate place for a Spyro selfie)
Food at the Homeplace
Bears in a tree!!
Turtle on the trail
You mean I have to ford that?
Pussel-gut and I in the Trail Days Hiker Parade
Another bear!
Mtnrunner on a mountain
Father/son selfie off of Mary's Rock
View across Skyline Drive before leaving the park