May 18
End: Telephone Pioneers Shelter
Miles: 39.8
Total: 3302.1
I was up very early, perhaps because I had been sleeping on the ground and was ready to leave. Yet I was surprised to find that I felt great, despite having cowboy camped for the first time since Florida.
I cruised down to a road with a convenience store where I refilled my water and enjoyed the cleanest, roomiest, fanciest bathroom ever to be placed in a convenience store. It even had a flat screen television playing local news.
After this early break I moved on and kept on moving, crossing many small roads. I climbed up Shenandoah Mountain and saw the state park below, with an empty beach on a lake. Later on I came to a cabin and checked it out. It was very nicely made and the inside was clean. I only realized as I left that it was RPH shelter.
I crossed some major highways and then more roads. The Appalachian Trail did a good job of staying in the woods, but it was obvious by the number of houses and people that I saw from the trail that I was not in a rural area. At a small road crossing I stopped and enjoyed an apple given to me by a couple of day hikers. They also refilled my water, but I could not chat long.
On a mission to cover lots of ground, I trekked on through the woods, crossed more roads, and finally arrived at Telephone Pioneers Shelter, almost forty miles from my starting point. I never did figure out the story behind the shelter’s name, but I met Moses, another thru-hiker, as well as a couple of other guys.
They were all ready for bed, so I cooked my dinner and got in my sleeping bag, happy to have finished my long day well before dark. I had covered a lot of ground in New York, a state which presented a few logistical irritations such as bad water, and was ready for another day.
