2024

Today we hiked 28 miles through the roller coaster and into West Virginia. I slept very well last night from 10 to 6. I listened to a slight breeze and enjoyed the 50 degree night. We ate breakfast and started hiking by 7:30.  We hiked through the roller coaster, which is 14 miles of ups and downs with very little flat trail. Most of the ups and downs are only a few hundred feet so we didn’t find it overly difficult. The harder part was the rocks on trail, which hurt our feet and made us take our time to not roll ankles. The roller coaster had some awesome woods and a couple good views.  In the middle of the roller coaster we passed the 1,000 mile mark! This is a huge achievement and I can’t believe we are already this far into the trail. It has been such an incredible experience so far and I had really enjoyed it.  Just before finishing the roller coaster we crossed into West Virginia for the first time. The trail runs the boarder between WV and VA for a just under 15 mi...

Our last full day in Virginia gifted us with thousands of flowers and perfect weather.   We slept in until 7 before checking out of the hotel around 8 to grab breakfast. We used a very nice Uber driver named Matthew 3 times between last night and this morning. He was probably the only person on Uber in the area and every time we tried to find a ride he picked it up almost instantly. Anyway, Matthew drove us to breakfast. I ate a ton of food: biscuits and gravy, chocolate chip pancakes, home fries, and bacon. Seeing as we will be in Pennsylvania the next time we resupply, this was our last breakfast at a southern diner and we made the most of it. From the breakfast place we shuttled to the post office then back to the trail. We started hiking right around 10AM with 23.5 miles to go. The trail was very flat and easy. We ran into a few southbound thru hikers who started in the middle, will hike to GA, fly to ME, then hike back to the middle. This style of thru hike is called a flip fl...

We finished the Shenandoahs today and hiked 13.5 miles into the town of Front Royal. It was cold last night. Like high 20’s. I slept pretty well despite the cold. We woke up around 6 and started hiking before 7:30 to get to town early.  The weather was a little chilly in the morning but heated up to 55 degrees when the sun came up. We hiked 9 miles out of the Shenandoahs with some good views on the way out.  After leaving the Shenandoahs we only had about 5 miles left on the day, which had some nice fields and woods.  We made it to town around 12:30 and ate a huge lunch of burgers and chicken sandwiches. Since then we’ve bought our resupply and checked into the hotel.  Tomorrow we will hike our last full day in Virginia. There still isn’t any rain on the 10 day forecast.  Goodnight, Walker  If you want to follow Tyler or Spencer, here are their logs as well: Tyler:  https://tylerat2024.blogspot.com/?m=1 Spencer:  https://www.instagram.com/baxter.b...

We had great weather and a pretty quick 24.5 miles of hiking.   We had more deer hang around the campsite last night. Between them and the barred owls I didn’t sleep great but I wasn’t up all night either.  We started moving around 6:45 and we were hiking just after 8. Tyler didn’t have much water so he went ahead 3 miles to a campsite that had a water spigot while Spencer and I ate breakfast. We caught up to Tyler and spent a few minutes hanging out at the campsite watching a very strange group of people cut trees down for their campfire. This is highly illegal in a national park, but it was pretty funny to watch.  We had a couple good views of the Shenandoah Valley throughout the day.  In the afternoon we hiked through the section of the park that burned in the forest fire last month. I’ve never been in such a recent burn area and the charred black mixed with the burnt orange pine nettles looked very interesting.  We made it to camp just after 5:30 and pitched...

Today had beautiful weather and easy trails. We had a couple decent views. We all slept in a little this morning and started moving just before 7. I slept very well, only waking up once or twice through 9 hours of sleep. The morning was a little foggy but we didn’t have any rain today.  By the afternoon the fog cleared and the clouds cleared before too long as well. The Shenandoahs have some stores called Waysides that are along the famous road called the Blue Ridge Parkway. We hiked past one of the Waysides called Skyland and stopped for dinner. Everything was expensive but the food was good. We had an awesome sunset outside of the Wayside.  After dinner we hiked another half mile and set up camp. Tomorrow we will hike 23 miles for our last full day in the Shenandoahs. The weather continues to look perfect. Goodnight, Walker  If you want to follow Tyler or Spencer, here are their logs as well: Tyler:  https://tylerat2024.blogspot.com/?m=1 Spencer:  https://www....

Today was very foggy but we had an awesome view at the end of the day. We slept in a little bit. There was another annoying deer last night that kept stomping around our tents all night. It finally left us alone around 12:30AM. We all were up and moving by around 7 and we still managed to be on trail before 8.  It rained a little on and off all day but the fog was thick enough that it would condensate on the trees and bushes. When the wind would blow the condensation would fall like rain. Luckily the temperature was a little cooler today so wearing rain gear was comfortable.  For most of the miles today we just put our heads down and covered distance. With the fog there really wasn’t much to look at.  We stopped for lunch at a shelter just before hitting the 900 mile mark.  In the afternoon we had a decent climb up to High Top Mountain and broke through the fog just before the summit. Seeing the perfectly blue skies everywhere but in the mountains was kind of funny. ...