Appalachian Trail - Day 060 - Big Meadows Lodge to Neighbour Mt Trailhead

Day: 060

Date: Friday, 23 June 2023

Start:  Big Meadows Lodge (AT Mile 926.8)

Finish:  Neighbour Mt Trailhead (AT Mile 949.0)

Daily Kilometres:  36.0 (Ascent 4170', Descent 5295')

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

Total Kilometres:  1597.9

Weather:  Cloudy and foggy most of the day with some heavy rain in the afternoon and some late sunshine.

Accommodation:  Tent

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Western omelette & chips/Sausages & eggs 

  Lunch:  Roast beef salad roll/Turkey salad roll

  Dinner:  Noodles & chicken 

Aches:  Dave - very tired and blistered heel still a problem; Julie - nothing to report.

Highlight:  For our last hour of hiking for the day we had some sunshine dappling our forest trail.

Lowlight:  For about 30 minutes before we were planning on a 30 minute mid-afternoon break at a picnic ground with some shelter, there was a heavy downpour that turned the trail into a river and saturated us both.

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

For the next leg of our culinary journey through Shenandoah National Park we planned to stop for breakfast at the Skyland Resort dining room, about eight miles from the Lodge where we stayed last night.  Knowing that they stopped serving breakfast at 10:00am (and closed the dining room for two hours), we knew that we had to make good time.  We left the Lodge at about 6:15am in foggy conditions with a light drizzle and hiked along.the saturated trail.  The going wasn't always easy, with many long rocky sections, and the viewpoints the trail passed were all white-outs with nothing to be seen as a reward for the climbs.  As time ticked by, we became a little worried that we would not make it in time, but arrived with 20 minutes to spare and got a table in the large crowded dining room.  The food was good and our waitress, easily identifying is as thru-hikers, kept refilling our Diet Pepsi glasses.

After breakfast we bought some lunch to take with us from the adjoining Starbucks and set our northwards.  Disappointingly, the trail continued to have many jagged and long rocky sections which not only slowed us down, but were very hard work.  There was also occasional drizzle and no views, to complete the picture.  At a picnic ground where we planned to have lunch, we found some limited "trail magic" on offer - Coke and Twinkies - from a German tourist/hiker.  We deferred eating the lunch we had bought earlier and chatted with the other thru-hikers there, one of whom thought she was making good time until she asked us when we started the trail and found out it was ten days after her.

From there we set out for another picnic ground five miles away at Thornton Gap where we planned to have a very late lunch.  Sadly, it rained torrentially for about 30 minutes (see above) before we got there and we both got very wet.  We ate our lunch in the breezeway of the toilet block while it continued raining, but not so hard.

The trail became easier after the Gap (it's all relative) and the sun even made an appearance as we covered our last miles for the day.  We didn't get quite as far as we wanted, leaving us 23 miles tomorrow to get to the road to Front Royal and a day off on Sunday, so we are hoping for some kinder trail.

It clouded over ominously, and thunder could be heard, as we set up camp and prepared dinner but, fortunately, it did not start raining until we finished eating and were in our tent.