Hwy. 623 to Bland, Virginia

Hwy. 623 to Bland

Day Four – Thursday, March 27, 2014

15.5 miles
8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

We woke up in a warm, cozy room with 20 degree weather outside.  Brrr! It was hard to make ourselves get back out there, but we finally did.  We drove down the motel driveway to the bottom of the hill to the Diary Queen for breakfast again, and then we met Bubba back at the motel for the long drive back up to the top of Garden Mountain.  The road was even icier and slicker this morning, although the snow had stopped falling.

The good news is –we are slackpacking today!!  That will make walking in the snow much easier!

We could see Burkes Garden slightly from this angle—not as well as we could have on the other side yesterday, but we did catch a glimpse of it.  What an awesome geological anomaly. It really does look like God put his thumb down and pressed it into the ground.  People actually live down there.   

We walked in deep snow drifts again today but we were also slack-packing, so that made it a little easier.  We only have one day’s hike to get back to Bland.  All day we alternated between snowy paths on the north/east side of the mountain and no snow on the south/west side.  

The trail leading to Jenkins Shelter is good terrain and a nice walk except for the rocks on much of it.  Especially the last half mile before the shelter is a nice leafy path.  Jenkins Shelter sits off the trail with the privy on the hill behind it.  I was surprised to find the privy was only a platform up off the ground with a toilet sitting on it.  No walls!  That was a funny feeling sitting there!

After the shelter we had a particularly easy section with a nice, wide, leafy trail.  After Laurel Creek, we had one uphill then again an easy walk on top of the mountain.  We thought we were reaching Bland when we saw a little town down below, but the trail stayed up high so we figured out it was Bastion that we passed by. 

We then came out of the trail onto a small gravel road.  We had to call Bubba to ask which way to go from there and he told us to turn left and walk a half mile down the road to a church and senior center. We waited there for Bubba to pick us up. 

We had left our car at the motel all packed up and ready to move up the trail.  We drove up to Pearisburg where we planned to stay for the night and hike southbound back to Bland in three days.  We stopped at the Friends and Family Restaurant to dinner, then went on in to Pearisburg to get a hotel room. 

We first went to Holiday Motor Lodge and saw a note on the door saying they were full.  We then went right next door to the Plaza Motel.  There were LOTS of trucks in the parking lot and men all around.  We went inside to the office to ask for a room.  They said they were all booked up with road construction crews.  We asked them to call MacArthur Inn in Narrows –2 miles west—to see if they had a room, which they did not.  They also were full of construction workers.  Alas, no room to be found! 

So we turned around and went back to Bland.  Instead of hiking south, we will hike north to Pearisburg and arrange for Bubba to pick us up to bring us back to our vehicle.  We usually like to hike TO the vehicle, but in this case we won’t be able to.

We’re getting pretty familiar with Bland by now.  Bubba is very nice and helpful as a shuttle driver.  His wife, Angie, keeps the motel rooms very clean.  This time we met the owner of the motel, Willy Davis.  He is very nice also.  I would say this is one of the nicer, although reasonable in rates, motels for hikers along the trail.

This time we couldn’t get Room #1, so we stayed in Room #2. 

 
                                

Chestnut Knob Shelter to Hwy. 623

Chestnut Knob Shelter to Hwy. 623

Day Three – Wednesday, March 26, 2014
6.2 miles
8:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.

         

After an uncomfortably cold night, we awoke to find everything frozen.  It sure is hard putting on frozen boots.  We again melted snow for our coffee.  It’s a good thing we brought our JetBoil on this trip—sometimes we don’t bring our stove and eat only cold meals.  That would have been a mistake this time. 

At 8:30 a.m. we left Chestnut Knob Shelter.   Rags and Shaggy Moe went before us, which was lucky for us—we followed their tracks all day.  I don’t know how they knew where the trail was, but they did pretty well and only went astray once. 

We slipped and slid going down into Walker Gap, with snowdrifts up to our knees.  No water to be found, everything was frozen or covered in snow.  We ate snow all day to keep hydrated.  That made us even colder. 

We slowly made our way around Burkes Garden, trying to see something below only to be disappointed over and over again because of the snow in the air below us.  We might have been traveling about one mile per hour.  At some point we stopped and called Bubba to see if, considering the icy conditions, he thought he could make it up the mountain to pick us up at Va. 623. He said he thought he could.  We said, “And, Bubba, will you bring us a coke? We haven’t had anything to drink all day.” 

So at 2:00 p.m. we came out of the woods at Va. 623, Garden Mountain, and saw a truck sitting there.  Since we had only seen Bubba once, we had to make sure he was our man.  Luckily he was, and he had our cokes.  Going back down the mountain was quite a ride!  Icy and slippery, but Bubba’s old truck handled it just fine.  He delivered us back to Big Walker Motel, Room 1.  We were glad to be there!

We went down to the Citgo Station to the Bland Square Grill for a hamburger for dinner.  Pretty good.

 

Knot Maul Shelter to Chestnut Knob Shelter

Knot Maul Shelter to Chestnut Knob Shelter

Day Two – Tuesday, March 25, 2014
9.1 miles
8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

 

Snow at Knot Maul Shelter

What a surprise when we woke up this morning—snow! Before we left town, we were expecting snow tonight – not last night.  So we thought we would be closer to town and possibly only walking in snow one day.  Oh well!  We got on the trail about 8:30 a.m. and walked in snowfall all day long, sometimes heavy snowfall. 

Snow at Knot Maul Shelter

Knot Maul Shelter

We stopped for water supply at Lick Creek.  From USFS 222 to the top of Chestnut Ridge was very hard and we were very cold.  We walked through a wooded area and came out on top of an open knob.  We passed a stagnant pond but kept on going and later wondered if perhaps the shelter had been down the trail beside the pond.  We were expecting to see Chestnut Knob Shelter much sooner than we did, and thought we had somehow missed it. We did not know that it was right on the trail and there was no way we could miss it.  So we kept trudging along, not looking forward to stealth camping out in the snow. 

After about 2 hours, we looked up and beheld Chestnut Knob Shelter!  Woohoo!  That was a long 4.6 miles.  No stealth camping after all, thank the Lord!  We were never to glad to see a shelter—and an enclosed one at that!  A former firewarden’s cabin with plexiglass windows—an extra bonus on a snowy evening. 

We were right on the top of the mountain in an open field.  The wind was howling and the snow was blowing.  I glanced ahead of me and saw a deep crater-shaped depression in front of me just before we pushed the shelter door open and rushed inside.  It was a big relief to be out of the wind. 

Rags was already in the shelter bedded down.  The first thing we did after putting on dry clothes was heat some water for hot tea.  I asked Rags if he would like to have some tea, not knowing that our water supply was low.  He accepted, but didn’t have a cup.  Wait-up gave him his cup.  Then Rags told us that there is no water at Chestnut Knob, a fact that we had somehow missed.  Poor Wait-up made several trips outside to get snow to heat up for his next cup of tea.  Oops!

Burkes Garden, aka "God's Thumbprint"
(Photo Courtesy of Greg Hardwicke)

By the time I had warmed up enough to venture back outside to take in the scenery, I was disappointed to see that the clouds were now covering the view of the canyon below—Burkes  Garden, aka “God’s Thumbprint.”   The A.T. follows the ridge around the area for 8 miles, which we traveled the next day, but we never got a good view of this spectacular site.

The privy sat facing the valley below behind the shelter.  The howling wind blew straight into the privy since it had no door.  The snow was piled up on the seat.  This made a visit to the privy quite uncomfortable—no  place to linger!

Before nightfall we were joined by Shaggy Moe, then Jack Rabbit and Jukebox.  The six of us quickly sought out our sleeping bags for warmth.  Although I never got warm all night it was a relief not to be stealth camping.  

Rags was quite a conversationalist.  He engaged first Wait-up then Shaggy Moe in and quickly guided the topic of conversation around to religion.  He revealed that he had recently converted to Catholicism and had found the peace he was searching for.  We enjoyed talking with him and agreed with his statement, “The Lord likes to be included in our conversation.”