Week 2: Oh Shenandoah! (Miles 45.5 – 108.2)

This week we hit two landmarks. We hiked over 100 miles and finished the Shenandoah National State Park. We are so very glad we started at this point rather than at Harper’s Ferry which was our original plan. Shenandoah taught us a lot about hiking. We were hit with cold winds, torrential rains, steep uphills and one two mile downhill that was nothing but rock scramble. We had blistering sunburns and blistered feet and a couple of stumbles. And yet we survived – no worse for the wear. But Shenandoah also gave us mountain peaks with beautiful vistas that went on for miles and lovely valleys and mornings with songbirds. It gave us enormous and fascinating rock formations and cliffs that filled us with fear and wonder as we inched precariously onto their ledges. All that being said, we were very happy to see it in our rear view mirror as we headed toward Front Royal where we had a night at a Bed and Breakfast waiting for us. I’m telling you, a week on the mountain without a shower and wearing the same clothes day after day makes a couple of pretty stinky hikers. A warm shower and clean clothes almost brought me to tears.

We also continue to meet the most interesting and kind people on the trail. Last week we were blessed to get to stay at a hostel waiting out another bad thunderstorm. While there we got acquainted with Cimos and Get Over It, a couple of guys doing some section hiking. Get Over It finished the trail quite awhile back but continues to hike with Cimos as he takes on sections at a time. Friends from high school, and both veterans who did tours in Afghanistan, we thoroughly enjoyed our conversations about life and the trail! On the day we parted ways, they were ahead of us quite a bit and ran into a scout group that had taken the stealth camping spot they knew we were headed for that night. When we met the group later that afternoon they told us our guys had informed them to watch out for the Buffalo ranchers and make sure they had a spot as well. I continue to be amazed at how attached you can get to other people on the trail even after a brief encounter. And how wonderful to talk to people from all walks of life-with maybe only one thing that might connect us – the trail.

After a zero day and resupply here in Front Royal, we will be headed back on the trail early in the morning. Our hope is to get to Harper’s Ferry in about a week’s time. We have to go through the Roller Coaster though to get there and I do have some concern about this section and the blister on my foot. This part of the trail is named such due to a continuous series of ups and downs or PUDS (trail term for pointless ups and downs.) We also plan to start pushing our mileage up a bit from 8-10 miles a day to 9-12. But we will continue to listen to our bodies and make adjustments as needed. We know this first month will be one to acclimate to the trail. We know if we push too hard, we have a much higher chance of injury which we are trying very hard to avoid.

We continue to ship things home. This week it was our brains. Not our actual brains – we must have shipped those off long ago to even take on this adventure. But our backpack brains. The little caps on top of the backpack that you fill with stuff you can easily access. We have found every ounce matters and this part of the backpack is actually not necessary. It is pretty interesting to see how little you really do need out here to survive. Here are some stats for this past week. Sixty-two miles, two falls each, zero bear, two deer, one snake and one scary banshee like sound outside our tent. We did not investigate.