May 4
End: Mount Vernon Picnic Shelter, MD
Miles: 31.9
Total: 2899.1
Spiral, Swivel and I got an early start because we had a lot of ground to cover in one day. I went on ahead and enjoyed a foggy morning and easy terrain. Leaving Virginia, I got a look at the Shenandoah River and Potomac River from above, then did the steep descent down to the Shenandoah River bridge. Swivel caught up to me as I tried to catch up on my journal. We then meticulously wrote a message to Spiral to indicate we were moving on, only to see him just behind us, coming across the bridge.
I went on to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy headquarters, which was a great experience. A guy at a desk asked me something along the lines of “Don’t tell me you walked here from Georgia?”, which I’m sure he says to many thru-hikers. With a straight face I replied “Oh, no sir, I walked here from Key West”. Beaten, he almost fell out of his chair.
The ATC had lots of cool resources, including a photo album of everyone who had stopped in so far. I got a look at the hikers way out in front, but noted that almost everyone ahead had started in February. We scrounged around in the hiker box for food, got our pictures taken, then left. I wish I could have hung out there all day, but we needed to leave.
The rest of Harper’s Ferry was an interesting piece of history, but did not offer cheap food. I got an expensive gyro sandwich, then had some ice cream with Spiral and Swivel, who had visited the post office.
Back on the trail, we left town and hiked on, gauging our progress and thinking about how far we could go. We stopped briefly to visit with the Hot Garbage Crew, who had moved ahead of us during our visit to Charlottesville.
Hiking on, we passed up Rocky Run Shelter, knowing we would be walking on into the night to get to the next shelter. We got our headlamps on as the sun set and kept going. Wearily trudging on, we came upon a picnic shelter right on the trail. We decided to stop there for the night and sleep on the picnic tables.
Dinner took awhile, and I did not get to sleep until about eleven at night. I was happy with our progress (we hiked in three states today), and also with our sleeping arrangements. The shelter had electricity, so we were able to use the lights instead of our headlamps, and to charge our phones.
