Mailing Address

At one point in the afternoon 10 hikers were in a line on the trail. I could not see all 10 at once but it reminded me of Marble Madness with a chain of marbles rolling up and down, right and left. Most hikers turned off the trail into the shelter but we kept going. The guide said that there was a bench at a trail junction and I thought this was my chance to sleep on a park bench! It was too early to stop when we got there so we kept going. (We later heard that AWOL slept there and said accommodations were very nice!) We crossed a four lane highway at Snickers Gap. That sounded like a good photo opportunity but we couldn't find a sign. A trail Angel had left drinks in the bushes but all were empty.

Our eight o'clock deadline approached as we climbed up from the gap and we knew that a flat campsite was going to be hard to find. A side trail led to a trailhead whose parking lot was empty and we found our camp site for the night. Two cars arrived at dusk and eight young people with huge packs set off to a cabin. One sang and played a guitar while wearing his big backpack. They had long loaves of bread poking out of packs but didn't share. Sigh. We slept very well anyway.

The best part of the day was arriving in West Virginia. There were even other hikers present to take our picture. We are sleeping in Virginia tonight, but West Virginia is just across the trail.

We are still in the midst of a large group of thru hikers. Some we know and haven't seen for awhile, some we know of thru common friends, most we don't know.

Harpers Ferry is tomorrow - the symbolic mid-point of the AT.

AWOL got to the ATC before we did and had a co-worker picking him up to host him for a town stay. He went to the outfitters and his friends treated us to a slurpee, a quick tour through the historical district and the dropped us off at the hotel! We had a great visit and enjoyed the treats. We did find AWOL at the outfitters.

Everybody that made it to the ATC's Blackburn Hostel last night attended a wedding! We missed out on the food and celebration. Most of the hikers decided to send their packs ahead to the ATC by car and then blew by us without their backpacks.

A PCT hiker from last year (our librarian's son Matt) had told us to look for his friends Doc & Llama and dog Coy. We knew we were getting close and missed them when we passed them. We will look for them in town.