This week we’re going to jump ahead to north-central Virginia and just go for a nice walk in the woods. We’d just left Paul C. Wolfe shelter after holing up there for the afternoon and evening the day before while it rained. We’d come nearly 16 miles from the Maupin Field shelter that morning and had made good time, arriving mid-afternoon to the Wolfe shelter. Had it not been raining I think we’d have gone straight into Waynesboro that evening instead. However, the next morning dawned clear and bright, and we booked it for Rockfish Gap where we called for a shuttle into Waynesboro. Our destination—and what I know I…

This is the first shelter into North Carolina (going north) on the Appalachian Trail. We’d left Hiawasee that morning with sunny skies, however by evening it had started clouding over. I remember thinking it was pretty hard to leave town as it was our first town stop along the way. The next morning it started snowing and we walked up a snow covered Standing Indian Mountain. It was a long day but eventually we made it to Carter Gap Shelter for the night. I need a few nights in a tent soon.

Blue Mountain Shelter was a fairly nice shelter, but I mostly remember it being pretty busy that night and morning. Yes, that is a dog in the sleeping bag. The girl leaning up against the shelter was its owner, and she was doing a short section, I think just Georgia. I remember her most that she picked up a slightly bruised if not half eaten banana from the parking area from the gap below and ate it. The mother and son there making breakfast over their stove were from Germany. I believe they ended up getting off trail because of her father’s ill health. I never heard anything more after…