Day: 042
Date: Monday, 05 June 2023
Start: Sugar Run Mt (AT Mile 623.0)
Finish: Pearisburg (AT Mile 636.1)
Daily Kilometres: 22.7 (Ascent 1615', Descent 3501')
GPX Track: Click here for Julie’s Strava & Photos
Total Kilometres: 1072.5
Weather: Foggy and cool early with some drizzle; warm and sunny in the afternoon.
Accommodation: Motel
Nutrition:
Breakfast: Pop tarts
Lunch: Cheeseburger & fries
Dinner: Super burrito/Chimichangas, peach pie & rice pudding
Aches: Dave - a few niggles; Julie - nothing to report
Highlight: The last hour of today's hiking, in bright sunshine, took us through groves of colourful wildflowers and along some high rocky ledges overlooking the valley far below and the town of Pearisburg from which rose the sound of church bells melodically pealing. Magic!
Lowlight: We hoped to have some of the renowned views from Sugar Run Mt where we camped last night when we got up this morning but there was thick fog and nothing to see.
Pictures: Click here
Map and Position: Click here for Google Map
Journal:
We woke at 5:30am to thick fog and a heavy dew which had everything feeling damp and the tent fly sopping wet. Also, no views from our mountain top.
We set off an hour later on a foggy dreary morning through very wet vegetation for the 14 mile hike to Pearisburg where we had a motel room booked. The trail wasn't too bad, though rocky and slippery in places, and we made reasonable time. We skipped some potential side-trips to view points because of the continuing fog, but still got the benefit of some brilliant wildflower blooms, primarily mountain laurel and rhododendron in many shades of pink and scarlet. They were glistening in the dew which just magnified their brilliance.
Otherwise, Dave, who was feeling the effects of lack of sleep and just wanting to get it done today, plodded along willing the hours to go by.
Things improved as we neared Pearisburg with the sun emerging and some fantastic views (see above).
After a long and sometimes slippery descent we reached a road crossing where we left the AT and followed the road a mile down into the town and our motel, arriving around 1:30pm. Amazingly, the first person we saw was our friend Tassie who had checked in the same morning, having arrived a few hours before us.
After checking in, it was showers and then laundry, which was done free of charge by the motel owner, Linda, while we ate lunch purchased at the take-away next door. You can't beat that, and the motel has very cheap "hiker rates".
On the downside, two of the three packages Dave had ordered have not arrived at the local post office, though one has now been located elsewhere (it's a long story). The joys of travelling.
Julie walked the 1.5 miles to the Walmart to find they had run out of our usual freeze-dried meals, so we are going to have to experiment with some different "just add hot water" foods on the next leg.
Later, we had a nice dinner at the Mexican restaurant across the road and got to bed at a reasonable hour looking forward to a day off tomorrow.
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