Day 59: Four Pines Hostel to Campbell Shelter — 10.7 miles

In the morning, we hike six quick miles across some farmland and up through the woods to the busy McAfee’s Knob trailhead on Route 311. From there, we hitch a ride to Home Place… again. While we eat lunch in silent, companionable bliss, the sunny day dissolves into a monsoon thunderstorm that makes the lights flicker. Then the sunshine returns, just as suddenly. We hitch back to the trail in the back of a pickup truck and hurry to reach the Knob before the storms return. A quarter mile from the vista, the sky opens up again, and when we reach McAfee’s Knob, our teeth chatter with cold and the views are nothing but gray waves of rain. Disappointed, we hike on to Campbell Shelter, where a dozen other hikers and one hiking dog are taking refuge from the rain. The stench inside –our stench— is oppressive, but we are pleased to find Sam, Alex, and Mike there, along with several other friends.

An hour of indecision follows while the rain pounds on the metal rooftop. It’s still pretty early, and the group in the shelter plans to hike onward to the shelter past Tinkers’ Cliffs to spend the night. But we’re still close enough to the Knob that we could walk back up for sunset if the weather clears. I’ve hiked McAfee’s Knob six or seven times before, but I hate the thought of my friends missing out. Eventually, the downpour slackens, the other thru-hikers leave, and we set up camp. We’ll stay here tonight and hike the rest of the way to Daleville tomorrow, where we’re going to stay with my good friend Megan and her husband Jon.

The clouds recede, and we walk back up to the summit for sunset.

Any lingering misgivings about letting our friends slip ahead again quickly disappear when we reach the viewpoint.

These views are worth it.

Day 60: Campbell Shelter to Daleville — 15.4 miles

The hike from McAfee’s Knob to Daleville was once a personal record for me for single-day backpacking distance. It wasn’t on purpose. On a week-long solo section hike in 2016, still new to backpacking and a bundle of nerves, I reached my target shelter for the day and saw that it was closed for bear activity. There was no water source on the coming ridge, and anyway I was terrified at the thought of being alone at a stealth site with a problem bear around, so I hiked the rest of the way to Daleville and rewarded myself with a night at the HoJo. It was the first time I’d ever booked a hotel to stay in by myself, not traveling with friends or family. The long miles and the cheap motel made the AT experience start to feel real, even if I still had a bad case of imposter syndrome as I sat eating a mediocre continental breakfast the next morning with real thru-hikers.

Now, I am one of those thru-hikers, and I realize how the invisible wall between me and those other hikers was never real. I’m not that different two years later. The only thing that separates me now from that girl on her first extended section hike is the easy confidence of 600 miles. Six hundred miles sounds like a lot, but it took me less than two months. Now the admiration and intimidation I felt around thru-hikers back then seems laughable, because present-day Thru-hiker Me feels so undeserving of either one. This isn’t like being an astronaut or a movie star, not something that takes natural talent, luck, and years of hard work and training to attain. All I had to do to get here was make it a priority in my life and then start walking.

Six hundred miles does make a difference, though, because the hiking feels easier than it did two years ago. The first part of the day takes us down from McAfee’s Knob, along the ledges of Tinker Cliffs, and down into a hollow shadowed by huge boulders and tunnels of rhododendron. We’re making good time, and so far, the weather’s holding. Then, the terrain goes uphill again. We can see the dark clouds approaching. The four of us have been hiking close together the last two days, at what feels — at least to me—like a breakneck pace. Not rushing, exactly; it’s more like reveling in how the easier terrain and our trail legs allow us to cruise along the trail at a clip that would have been impossible in Georgia. Any faster and I would have to break into a jog, but right here, at this pace, I can go all day.

The rain catches us, and it pours as we follow the ridgeline. It’s a drenching rain, and I get soaked because it’s too warm for my Frogg Toggs. At a massive slanting rock formation, there’s a patch of ground sheltered by an overhang, and I pause there to sip some water. Etienne appears behind me moments later and stops too. The rain is loud on the leaves and rocks around us, but before I can try to speak over the noise, he pulls one of the headphones from his ear and places it in mine. He’s listening to the soundtrack from Guardians of the Galaxy, and we huddle together under the ledge while the downpour passes. The jaunty 70s music makes this feel like a scene in a summer movie montage where the characters bond throughout their misadventures. At moments like these, the hike feels more like a movie than anything real.

Reality sets in again when we keep hiking. It’s still drizzling as we complete one little climb and descent after another on the rocky ridgeline. Each time, I think we’re about to head down into town, but then the ridge climbs upward again. After crossing beneath several sets of humming power lines, we finally descend, roll through some muddy forest, and emerge abruptly from the trees in Daleville.

Megan arrives shortly afterward, and we load our packs into the bed of her pickup truck and pile in. I feel acutely embarrassed by how bad we smell, especially me. Since I leapfrogged over the trail around Pearisburg and never found a real shower in either of my two brief resupplies since my zero days at home, I haven’t bathed in a personal record of nine days. Nine days, I conclude, is way too long, especially when imposing on a dear friend’s hospitality.

Megan and Jon are incredibly gracious, and they patiently allow us to shower and do laundry until our mere presence is less offensive to the olfactory system. We pass a wonderful evening sharing our adventures and enjoying their stories and hiking pictures from their recent trip to New Zealand. They take us to the local Mexican restaurant, and afterward, we go to sleep early.