big meadow campground to pass mountain hut

it rained pretty much all night. my tent stakes didn’t stay put in the soggy ground and my tent went slack and let a little water in, but not much. my new sleeping pad seemed to stay full all night long, and because of it’s thickness neither my sleeping bag nor i got wet.

it stopped raining a little before dawn, and i briefly saw the beginning of a sunrise before it was obscured by clouds. i thought i heard lyric packing up, so i got moving. i exited my tent and decided to leave it up to dry out while i ate breakfast.

breakfast was my new regular, breakfast essentials ‘milk’ with granola. it’s been serving me better than oatmeal, which was starting to run out before my 10:00 snack break. i was halfway done with breakfast when lyric emerged. i was wrong about his packing up noises.

i let my tent dry out a bit more but wanted to get on trail, so again i left while the tramily was still eating.

i walked down the road past the camping ground and to the trail. the trail was still muddy from the rain the night before, and the rocks were very slippery. i hiked for a while before i got some cell service and was able to call magz. we had a nice chat while she got some things done around the house and got ready to head to michael and syd’s.

we rang off, and i hiked on. the foul weather holding off for the time being. i arrived at skyland where there is a small coffee bar. i waited in line for a coffee, but ultimately left. i am hesitant to admit that i’ve been pretty disappointed with shenandoah so far. for one, the weather has been shit, so i haven’t seen much in the way of views. but i also have come to realize that the views from the trail are few and far between compared to the views from skyline drive. i think they prioritized cars when building the park. there is also so much infrastructure here and people. it’s a novelty to have shops once or twice a day to get a coffee, but ultimately i think i hate it because of the droves of people.

the view from skyland was nothing. the weather was changing. i headed out and within about 10 minutes the skies opened. i put on my raincoat and deployed my sad umbrella and kept hiking. i got to an overlook and there were clumps of people huddling in the trees trying to get out of the torrent of rain. the trail immediately turned into a river. the torrential rain continued for almost 2 hours.

it finally broke just before i reached a picnic area with a gazebo for lunch. i ate lunch by myself listening to the loud conversation of a nesrby trio of muggles that was dominated by one person.

i finished lunch and was happy to find a trash can to dump my refuse before i left. the afternoon’s weather was substantially better than the morning and i made good time, arriving at pass mountain hut around 14:45. i was the only one there for a while, but it gradually filled up, mostly with section hikers at first, but then thru-hikers started filing in, including black paws, who we haven’t seen since damascus.

i also came across a crazy tree. it looks like someone, or maybe more likely someones ate the top off all the bark.

some additional images from today: