Tuesday, April 5th, 2016
Start: Bailey Gap Shelter
End: Cross Ave/VA 634 - Pearisburg
Miles: 23.4
Last night, when I got up to go to the bathroom, it was snowing. I was okay until about 2-3am, when the temperature dropped considerably. I spent the next 4 hours huddled at the bottom of my sleeping bag, shivering. My water bottles were frozen in the morning. When it's so cold your hands go numb after a few minutes, it makes packing up take a lot longer. I started out from Bailey Gap Shelter (3510') around 7:30-ish.
I descended to The Captain's place (2410'), where a past thru-hiker rigged up a rope pulley system over a creek to get hikers over to his property, where there's wifi, camping, and free soda. I went across for a soda and some wifi. The Captain's temperature gauge said it was 22 degrees in the shade around 8:30am.
I passed by Pine Swamp Branch Shelter (2532'), up past Allegheny trail (3726'), down to Dickenson Gap (3300'), past Rice Field Shelter (3375'), down to Landfill Rd (1597'), and a last burst of climbing to end at Cross Ave/VA 634 (2019').
I was able to catch a hitch the short 0.8 miles into town, rather than walk. I arrived at the Plaza motel around 6pm. A trail friend of mine, Towanda (NOBO 2015), came to visit with me. We went to the AYCE Chinese buffet for dinner and it was delicious!
Tomorrow, Towanda will drop me at a bus in Bluefield, WV on her way back home and I'll head back to my car in Charlottesville, and from there, home.
Over the course of 11 days of hiking, I completed 227.1 miles!
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