Today was a good day. The trail was mostly good trail, the weather was good and mostly cooperative, and we got ice cream… always the hallmark of a good day.
We began with a short hike up to another one of the overlooks on the Blue Ridge Parkway where we had our breakfast of Multigrain tortillas with peanut butter and M&Ms. Those powered us up and down the next 9 miles. At one point, we got briefly stuck behind a trail maintainer who was weed- whacking the plants along the side of the trail. He had his back turned, and couldn’t hear us, so we slowly followed him for almost 10 minutes until he finally turned around and noticed us to let us pass.
We arrived down at Jennings Creek right around lunch time, so we kicked off our shoes and planned on relaxing for a bit. We waded into the water, there is a popular swimming hole here, and soaked our feet. The cold water felt really good. We then ate some cheese and salami for lunch. Another thru-hiker named Obi-Wan caught up to us and said he was going to call the campground just down the road to get a shuttle… where we could go to the camp store and get ice cream. Naturally, we joined in on this action, and within about 5 min, 6 hikers were on their way to get ice cream.
It was a pleasant, unexpected surprise to get ice cream today, but I’m glad the campground will actually send someone to pick up hikers. We all relaxed out on the porch enjoying our treats, chatting about all kinds of things. Alas, we eventually had to get a ride back and continue on.
The rest of the day was only about 9 more miles to the Cornelius Creek Shelter. We stopped by the Bryant Ridge Shelter for a break, mainly because it’s one of the largest shelters on the whole trail. There’s a sleeping loft and everything.
*2020 Virtual AT Note*
I remember this break and this shelter specifically. First, when I went to gather water, I discovered stinging nettles. This is a plant with tiny little barbs that sting when you rub against them, and cause a minor rash. Also, just before we left the shelter, we all looked up and saw the BIGGEST spider we had ever seen. Luckily we saw it AFTER we had already explored the shelter. Anyway… on with the rest of the post:
The climb after Bryant Ridge was long, and a few parts got quite steep. We did get a short sprinkle of rain which felt nice.
We’ve kind of unofficially hooked up with this small group of hikers, and we’re all planning on the same destination for tomorrow as well… Glasgow, VA, where there’s apparently a shelter in town that has hot showers. With this stop we can skip Buena-Vista, VA, and should get to Waynesboro by Sunday (and Devil’s Backbone brewery by Saturday!). We’re looking forward to starting Shenandoah so soon!
