Day 54
We woke up feeling sore, but good this morning and got a super early start with no destination in mind. We had a mostly downhill hike for the first 9.5 miles. We took a break at Brown Mountain Shelter, which is in an old community of Brown Creek, a community where freed slaves lived from after the Civil War to 1910. It was so cool to see remnants of an old town. It was like being home in the Smokies again. Now, we climb up, up, up a total of 3,000 feet to the three humps! We pushed hard and got to here we wanted to camp at 4 pm, so we decided to push on as far as we could go. At 5:30, we were both exhausted and decided we had to keep moving at least to mile 23 since there wasn’t any water and we wouldn’t be able to eat. Then, I had an epiphany! I had a can of Pepsi in my pack from trail magic that morning and a banana! I caught up to Nokey and told him I really wanted a 25-mile day and he agreed! We shared the Pepsi and he had chocolate-covered espresso beans. I ate the banana and off we went! We climbed a rocky bald and ran to Seely-Woodward shelter, 4.6 miles, in less than an hour and 10 minutes! We were so stoked and Nokey had his biggest mileage day yet! We were tired and very happy!

Day 55
Woke up at 1 am very sick. I threw up nearly all night. We found out I had a cell signal and called Dutch Haus B&B who agreed to take us in for the night. We had to walk 3.4 miles first. Walking this 3.4 miles while throwing up was easily my worst experience on the trail and I’ve never felt more miserable. Thankfully, nearly all of it was downhill to the parking lot. We got to the meadow at the parking lot and I laid down in the grass to rest. Our ride came half an hour early and we were at Dutch Haus at 10:30. They let us bunk in the basement near a bathroom. They provided us a lunch of sloppy joes, veggies, and pasta. I had been talking about sloppy joes for nearly three weeks and only was able to eat a few bites :( I was able to rest all day at least and I’m hoping to regain my strength tomorrow. The photo is of Dutch Haus.

Day 53
Today Nokey and I woke up sore and tired! We were unmotivated to hike, but needed to get moving. We watched the sunrise on the ridgeline and packed up to head to Matt’s Creek to have breakfast since we ran out of water. We got there and the Boy Scouts were everywhere still. We felt justified in our decision to stay on the ridge for sure. From here, we had downhill and level walking to the James River and the Foot Bridge (yes, the guy who the bridge was named after a guy named Foot, which is also the longest foot-only bridge on the AT). We got down to the road and now we had to start climbing. Nokey and I went in about half a mile and then decided we really, REALLY don’t want to hike. We actually turned around and decided to hitch to a town for food. We got back to the road and the Boy Scouts were there again. We told them we were looking for a ride hoping they’d take us, but they weren’t going to. Luckily, they said there was a younger guy looking for thru hikers if we hung out for a minute. The guy, Rain Gear, was a 2011 NOBO and asked us if we wanted to have lunch with him! He took us to H&H in Big Island and bought us hamburgers and fries! We stayed with him for nearly two hours before returning to the trail. When we got back to the trail, Xena, a 2004 thru hiker, was with her two young sons and have us homemade brownies! We decided since it was nearly 1:30. When we came to the next road crossing, a trail maintainer gave us ice water! What an awesome day! We ended up hiking about 10 more miles, nearly all uphill, to Punchbowl Mountain. The shelter was 0.2 miles off trail, but was so gorgeous with a pond when we got there! The shelter is supposedly haunted by a little boy, Ottie Cline Powell, who disappeared when looking for firewood in 1891. They found his body nearly 5 months later at the top of Bluff Mountain. They never looked for him up there because it was so high up. Anyway, we didn’t use any ghost sightings and had a great nights’ rest with Stingray, GQ, and Maxis.

Day 52
I woke up today determined to not let Virignia beat me. We planned another big day with lots of climbing, but I was ready! We started our day with the ascent of Floyd Mountain and lots of undulation afterward. We passed a ton of people today being that it was the weekend, including a Girl Scout troop who asked a lot of questions about thru hiking. We climbed Apple Orchard Mountain and had a fabulous view for the first time in forever! Then, on to The Gulliotine, a super cool rock formation. We pushed on, but lost a lot of time by talking to so many people. We ate dinner at a campsite and decided to try and push on to Matt’s Creek when we were told more than 20 Boy Scputs were there. We decided a good night’s sleep was more important than the miles and stopped about a mile short of the shelter to stealth camp. We watched the sunset over the James River and talked about how excited we were to hit mile 800 tomorrow. Virigina, I’ve conquered you yet another day!

Day 37
Today Nokey and I woke up and decided we felt better and wanted to try for our first 30-mile day. The terrain profile looked easy and we were pumped! We pushed our first 6 miles pretty quick and we were pumped, then we came to a monster downhill followed immediately by a ‘ridgeline’ walk on rocks for six miles. It took us way too long to walk that and by 3 pm we were beat. We made it to Jenkins Shelter about 5 pm and were going to push on five more miles, but we decided to hang out at the shelter. Turns out, everyone came here, including some other people we knew as well! Today was also my birthday, so we celebrated in the best way we could. Nokey gave me a brownie and Dirty Girl gave me a Twix bar. Even though it was a tough hiking day, it was still awesome. We even coined a new phrase ‘birthday rocks’ since birthdays are awesome and rocks are not. The rocks killed our pace and we only did 15.7 in about 9 hours. Rough going for sure, but we all had a great day.