Today was a significant day for so many reasons! We would be getting out of Virignia (finally!), hitting the 1000-mile mark, and meeting up with Nokey’s Uncle Joe for the night, followed by Harpers Ferry (the emotional halfway mark) and a few days off the following day! But first, we had to finish the rollercoaster on the minimal amount of food we had left! Our day started with a downhill since we’d camped up top, so we had ample time to warm up first! We headed down to the Sam Moore Shelter for some water and breakfast. After finishing, the hills of the rollercoaster didn’t seem to bother us so much. We passed Bears Den Rocks and came to Snickers Gap early, at only 10 a.m.! At Snickers Gap I was starving and we were both in a bad mood since we had nearly nothing left to eat. We saw a sign telling us about some local restaraunts only a mile away and I fought like hell to get Nokey to go! After deciding that “The Trail Will Provide” (A mantra of ours), we decided to walk the mile to Pine Grove Restaraunt. This turned out to be an amazing decision! They had homemade food (I had a spinach, sundried tomato, and mozzarella omelet!) and the service was awesome! We met the owner of the place and he let us charge up our nearly dead phones. We also got in touch with Nokey’s uncle and put in some requests for food for dinner since he was meeting up with us at the Blackburn AT Center that night.
After spending nearly two hours here, we decided it would be a good time to get back onto the trail before the rain started. As soon as we opened the door to leave, the rain began and we had a mile walk back to the trail! I stuck out my thumb to hitch a ride and less than 5 seconds later, a car stopped and took us back to the trailhead! We got there and Broadswoard and SG were there and we did the rest of the rollercoaster with them, which wasn’t nearly as hard as we thought it would be in the torrential rain. The wind was really blowing and it felt like rain was hitting us from every direction. Around 2 p.m., we hit our 1000-mile mark, which is also the first time we cross out of Virginia! They had a “Welcome to West Virignia” sign up and we took silly photos in front of it. From here, we still had two more hills of the rollercoaster and we pushed it as hard as we could to the Blackburn AT Center, making it there by 4:15 p.m.
When we got there, we had to wait on Uncle Joe, but we were welcomed by Chris and his wife Caroline, two former thru hikers who were running the place. The offered us cookies and sodas, which was an amazing treat. They also cooked us a spaghetti dinner! Nokey’s uncle and friend came and brought us food too! The torrential rain continued and we were informed by James that there were tornadoes down in the valley! The rain finally let up a little around 9 p.m. and we were able to get some sleep. We were super excited about getting into Harpers Ferry in the morning, the emotional halfway point of the trail and the ATC headquarters!