Hwy. 623 to Bland
Day Four – Thursday, March 27, 2014
15.5 miles8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
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.
