Miles: 984.3 | A quick road hitch leads to a much-needed lunch, drying gear, and a brief morale reset before flash floods turn the trail into a river. With the Rollercoaster ahead and momentum returning, the day ends split between shelters—one crowded, one quiet—and the first solo night in a while, easing back into independence.
I woke up at 8am and was out of camp by 9:30am. The sky had cleared up and the fog began to lift. We had realized a couple of days before that Miles might be low on food. We kept looking for opportunities to go into town but we had hiked through Front Royal at night and we hadn’t gotten enough food in Luray.
Not too far from where we were camping was a road into a town. 2 miles into town was the Apple House restaurant. In the guide book they said they were hiker friendly and offered rides from the trail head for free. Next door was a convenience store that could get us by and the owner also offered to take us to a grocery store if we needed.
We hiked through the mud into town and waited for him by the road. He came as soon as we called! When we arrived the sun was finally out and it was hot. He let us put our stuff in the sun in the parking lot to dry. Inside the A/C was cool. He showed us to their newly opened bar where we ordered food and flights of beer. He even gave us some apple cider donuts on the house!
We ate lunch and charged our phones. I went to the gas station and got more snacks. Miles didn’t. I got a bit annoyed with him. We came into town because he said he didn’t have enough food and now I was the one leaving with more food. He said lunch had been enough to keep him going it would be fine. I rolled my eyes. I couldn’t force him to go get food but I knew he’d be eating some of mine later.
We finished drying out our stuff and got a ride back to the trail head. As soon as we started up the trail it began to downpour. Flash flooding started almost immediately. The trail turned into a river. It rained so hard I couldn’t even get a photo. We made it to a shelter a couple miles from the restaurant and posted up there til it stopped raining. We met Moss, and a thru-hiker, and her friend who was section hiking with her. We chatted with them about the trials and tribulations of rain on the trail.
Miles and I started up a chess game. He was holding the board as there wasn’t much space to put it down. Half way through the game he stopped paying attention and accidentally dropped the chess board. All of the tiny travel-sized pieces scattered in the nasty under shelter dirt. Brand new chess board, all the pieces on the ground.... we scoured the ground and found all but three. Then we lifted up the grate that was used as a step up into the shelter and found two more. The last sliver pawn was never found. But we still had most of the pieces!
The sun finally came out again after a while and I decided I wanted to get a few more miles in. We were trying to get to Bear’s Den Hostel the next night to shower and get out of all the rain and it was 22 miles away. In between us and the shelter was 70% of the Rollercoaster, a 13 mile section with 13 peaks. It came to be when the US Forest Service acquired land next to a 10 mile stretch of trail that was originally road walking. This acquisition made it so hikers didn’t have to leave the woods. Trail boss and his crew maintain this stretch. The Rollercoaster was tough and I wasn’t about to underestimate it and push a long, hard day. I decided I would go 5 more miles.
Miles didn’t want to go. He was tired and wanted to stay at this shelter. We hadn’t camped apart since we started together. And I felt weird about it. I knew I’d be fine and I’d see him the next day but it still gave me anxiety for some reason. I guess we’d been together for so long that it just felt weird. He wasn’t budging, though, he didn’t want to come with me and I didn’t want to stop short. So I moved on. We agreed to meet near a gap up ahead in the morning.
I hiked on. The rain stayed at bay but the clouds remained overhead, making the evening trail dim. I arrived to the next shelter around dusk and made my way down the blue blaze. It was a poorly maintained blue blaze, and a confusing one at that. The storm had made it so the river that the shelter sat on was so flooded you couldn’t tell how to get across it. My feet were already soaked so I sloshed through the river. As I approached Dick’s Dome, the original shelter for this location, a geodesic dome, I saw it was full. When I got closer o realized it was Josh, Mark, Tang, and Murdock! It was a pleasant surprise. They didn’t usually frequent shelters. We chatted for a bit and they told me about the new shelter a little further up the blue blaze. It was obvious I wouldn’t fit in the dome with them, besides I’d snore far too loudly to sleep in there.
I headed up the blue blaze after I gathered some water. When I arrived at the Whiskey Hollow Shelter there were only two other people there: Babganoush (the second one I met) and Concrete Cowboy. They were friendly. They’d set up in the loft of the shelter so I had the whole first floor all to myself! I rolled out my sleeping pad on the newly polyurethaned floor and blew it up. They offered for me to join them for dinner. We talked about the rain, of course, and food selections. I love getting food ideas from other hikers.
After dinner I went outside and went to the bathroom one last time. I sprayed powder on my legs where my compression shorts had trapped moisture on the skin and started causing heat rash. Back inside the shelter I cozied into my sleeping bag and went to sleep as more rain began to fall.