Milestone

Today is Monday, May 9th. I'm going to head back out to the trail today after spending the night in Waynesboro, VA at a very nice Day's Inn. The price was good, the breakfast was good, no complaints. My only gripe was not with the motel, but with trying to get around as a pedestrian when just about everything in modern America is geared toward motorized transportation. The motel is in a newer area of town; restaurants and shopping centers abound. If you are on foot though, there are no sidewalks and none of the intersections are designed for pedestrian use. It seems that only densely populated cities and small towns that still revolve around an old core understand pedestrians.

Just for fun, I walked along railroad tracks for about three miles while heading into Waynesboro yesterday. Google Maps showed that it was a much more direct route into town, and I didn't feel like hitchhiking or calling for a shuttle or taxi. Since it was Sunday, I figured there wouldn't be any trains running, and there weren't any.

Why is the title of this post Milestone? Because I'm finally through with the nonstop vertical roller coaster for a while. I'll be entering the southern boundary of Shenandoah National Park today and the terrain will be less extreme from here through Vermont.

The steep climbs and descents that characterized the first 860 miles of the trail become physically and mentally exhausting after a while. A few days ago I steadily climbed up to about 4,000 feet from about 2,000 feet. I then precipitously descended down to a river below 1000 feet, only to immediately climb back up to 4,000 feet. The next day was almost a repeat of that.

Surprisingly to some, the Appalachian Trail is considered, mile for mile, the most strenuous of the three great long distance trails in the U.S. Although it is shorter than both the Pacific Crest Trail and the Continental Divide Trail, it exceeds both of them in total elevation gain/loss. Now you know why I'm so thrilled to begin a section of the trail where these gains and losses aren't so stark. It will become strenuous again once I reach New Hampshire and Maine, but I'll be so close to the end that it won't take a psychological toll. I should be in absolute peak physical condition then also.

I had an interesting experience yesterday while walking down to Rockfish Gap, the trailhead near here. It was a sunny afternoon and lots of local day hikers were out on the trail. I saw one guy coming toward me who appeared to be around 30 years old. He was tall, well-tanned and muscular, wearing shorts and an open vest. He had a strange gait to his walk and as he got closer I noticed that he had some large feathers tied to his hair and something in his mouth. As he passed by me I noticed that he was carrying a baby blanket and that the thing in his mouth was a pacifier. He said "Hi Sir" in his best baby voice as he walked on by without even taking the pacifier out of his mouth. I soon caught up with another thru hiker and we were both incredulous, not really believing what we had just seen.

Well, it's time to catch a ride back to the trail.