Day: 061
Date: Saturday, 24 June 2023
Start: Neighbour Mt Trailhead (AT Mile 949.0)
Finish: Chester Gap (AT Mile 972.1) but staying at Front Royal.
Daily Kilometres: 38.1 (Ascent 3753', Descent 5381').
GPX Track: Click here for Julie’s Strava & Photos
Total Kilometres: 1636.0
Weather: Overcast and misty early, then clearer with a heavy rain shower mid-afternoon and late humid sunshine.
Accommodation: Motel
Nutrition:
Breakfast: Turkey salad sandwiches
Lunch: Ham salad sandwiches
Dinner: Cheeseburger & fries, choc chip cookies.
Aches: Dave - struggling with sore heel; Julie - nothing to report.
Highlight: It was great to have some views again after our climbs and we particularly enjoyed our midday break on on a rocky ledge on South Marshall Mt with an excellent vista and a close up view of some hawks(?) riding the wind right in front of us.
Lowlight: Getting drenched again in a mid-afternoon downpour which turned the trail into a river and lakes.
Pictures: Click here
Map and Position: Click here for Google Map
Journal:
The final stop on our culinary tour of the Shenandoah National Park was to be more low-key with a visit to the Elk Wallow Wayside which was supposed to open at 8:00am but did not offer hot food until 11:00am.
It was only four miles from where we were camped, so we packed up and started hiking on a misty morning, after it had rained all night, at about 6:20am. We timed it perfectly, arriving at the Wayside at exactly 8:00am, just as the store opened, and bought ourselves some cold food for breakfast and lunch.
Although the weather seemed to be clearing up, everything was still very wet and we sat at a damp picnic bench outside the store and ate our breakfast before we continued hiking northwards. The trail wasn't too bad all day and, although we climbed a number of mountains, the grades were manageable. We made reasonable time, although Dave is still struggling with a recovering heel blister that has made him even slower!
It was nice to have some.views again and we stopped a number of times to take them in (see above), but the trail was mostly in the "green tunnel". Sadly, we seem to be past the best of the wildflowers though there are still a few around.
We didn't see many thru-hikers today, but there were plenty of other hikers out and we actually met an Appalachian Trail Ridgerunner, hired to hike the trail and make sure hikers were safe and using good camping (leave-no-trace) practices, and had a brief chat.
Around mid-afternoon it suddenly got cooler, the sky darkened, and we had another heavy downpour (a la yesterday). Suddenly, everything seemed wet or damp again and we were very glad that we would be in a motel tonight.
Around 4:30pm we exited Shenandoah National Park and an hour later emerged into farmland before reaching a highway from where we planned to travel to Front Royal where we had a motel room booked for two nights. Although Uber seemed to be an option, despite patchy phone reception, we decided to try hitching for a while first.
After about 10 minutes, a pick-up that had just passed us by returned and offered us a lift into Front Royal so long as we were willing to ride in the tray. We agreed and had a fast breezy ride into town where we were delivered directly to our motel by the very friendly contractor.
It was already nearly 7:00pm, so after checking in Dave walked across the road to buy some take-out dinner while Julie had a shower then, after dinner and despite the hour, Julie walked a block to a laundromat and did our laundry. One less chore for tomorrow.
We completed two months on the trail today and are looking forward to a day off tomorrow (Dave, in particular, in the hope that it will help the troublesome heel heal).
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