Julie and I are hiking the Appalachian Trail in the US from Springer Mt, Georgia, to Mt Katahdin, Maine, in the north, a distance of almost 2,200 miles (3,540 km). Our journey will start in early May 2023 and is expected to take about five months. We will be mostly camping, carrying 3-5 days of supplies to get us between resupply points, where we will be staying in hostels/hotels/motels where we can. I hiked the entire Appalachian Trail back in 1986 so it will be interesting to see how much has changed and how much it has stayed the same.

Appalachian Trail - Day 057 - Rockfish Gap to Blackrock Hut

Day: 057

Date: Tuesday, 20 June 2023

Start:  Rockfish Gap (AT Mile 864.3) but staying in Waynesboro

Finish:  Blackrock Hut (AT Mile 885.0)

Daily Kilometres:  36.7 (Ascent 4938', Descent 4098')

GPX Track:  Click here for Julie’s Strava & Photos

Total Kilometres:  1490.2

Weather:  Mix of overcast and fog with rain in the afternoon.

Accommodation:  Shelter 

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Motel cooked breakfast 

  Lunch:  New York sub 

  Dinner:  Rehydrated meals 

Aches:  Dave - sore heels; Julie - nothing to report 

Highlight:  None really.

Lowlight:  It got a bit miserable when a heavy rain shower came through, accompanied by a strong cold wind, in the early afternoon.

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

We ate our fill at the motel's complimentary breakfast before getting an Uber back to the trail from Waynesboro.  We were hiking by soon after 8:00am in thick fog.  Thru-hiking friend, Phoenix, was coincidentally also dropped off just as we were about to enter Shenandoah National Park and joined us for the first few miles.

The vegetation was wet from overnight rain and the forest gloomy.  Dave was wishing we had stayed back in the motel on what was forecast to be a showery day.  For those first few miles the trail kept climbing up towards a ridge and then dropping down again, often on slippery rocks and it wasn't much fun, but as the day wore on the trail quality improved and the ups and downs weren't so steep.

The trail is now paralleling Skyline Drive, an extension of the Blue Ridge Parkway, which runs the length of Shenandoah NP, and it was often audible or visible during the day and we crossed it a number of times.

The trail was mostly through forest, but sometimes through thick undergrowth and not very scenic.  Views were also limited by fog and trees.  We did see deer a number of times and they didn't seem to be too bothered by people.

There is rain forecast to start overnight and continue through tomorrow, so we decided to aim for a shelter tonight so that we wouldn't have to pack up in the rain with a wet tent tomorrow morning.  Blackrock Hut was in the right place and we reached there about 6:30pm.

Several other thru-hikers are here, but it's not too crowded and we enjoyed a chat while we had dinner.

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