VA 601 to Rural Retreat, VA

Day Three
October 2, 2013
VA 601 to Rural Retreat, VA
15.6 miles

Partnership Shelter

We left camp at 7:30 a.m.  Although it was a very nice, level walk through a rhododendron alley, I started thinking about how bad my feet hurt and how heavy my pack was.  I was moping along not having a very good time.  Two nights with not much sleep didn't help any.  We hiked for 4 miles before reaching Partnership Shelter.  I told Wait-up I wanted to call our shuttle driver to see if he could come pick us up at Mt. Rogers headquarters so we could quit for the day.  He reluctantly agreed.  We called True Brit (Nigel) from Fort Bastian, but he was unable to come.  I guess it is a good thing because I probably would not have started back.  The heavy load was killing me and my feet had been burning every day. 

We had no choice but to keep going though. 

Partnership Shelter is a popular shelter for thru-hikers because it is one of the few to have a shower.  The water heater is propane-powered and is available during warmer months.   The Mt. Rogers National Recreation Area headquarters is located  just a few hundred yards north of the shelter. We found it closed due to the government shut-down.  Even the restrooms were locked.  We looked through the door and saw a soda machine beckoning to us.  Waah!  Sure would have been nice.    

Partnership Shelter Shower

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Partnership Shelter bathroom

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

See the deer?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chatfield Shelter

Past USFS 86, we started climbing Glade Mountain through a very narrow trail of Mountain Laurel and soon came to Chatfield Shelter where we chatted with a couple of day-hikers who were hiking the Rhododendron Trail. 

We were concerned to see that someone had left a pile of dog food on a stump in front of the shelter.  Probably won't be long before the bears find it and start hanging around this shelter.   

 

 

 

 

Resting in the yard of the Settler's Museum.

 

 
  At Highway 615, the trail comes out along the fenceline of the  Settlers Museum.  I visited the old one-room schoolhouse, which was in operation from 1894 to 1937.  It still had all the furnishings in it.  Outside I stole a few apples off the apple tree in the yard. 

One-room schoolhouse at the Settler's Museum.

As Wait-up was sitting on the grass waiting for me to finish visiting the schoolhouse, he heard a big boom and saw a big ball of smoke down below.  As I walked outside he said, “Something really bad just happened down there.”  We heard several more booms and saw more smoke.  When we got into town later we found out that there was a bad accident on the interstate involving a fuel-tanker and a couple other vehicles.  We saw a life-flight helicopter and ambulances  and all the traffic was diverted off the interstate to go through the little town of Rural Retreat.

One-room schoolhouse at the Setter's Museum

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

The privy in back of the schoolhouse
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back on the trail, it was downhill from the museum to town.  We walked through old farm land and grassy pastures.  We helped ourselves to a few apples from the old apple trees and kept on walking down.  At 5:00 p.m. we reached the highway  and found ourselves looking right down on the accident site.  Traffic was backed up quite a way trying to get onto the two-lane road.  We walked over to the filling station to try to get a ride into Atkins.  We had been advised not to stay at the hotel in Rural Retreat.  We saw The Barn Restaurant, but didn’t want to walk the short distance to get to it, so we sat on a bench in front of the station and asked folks as they came by if they were going to Atkins.  A gentleman who worked at the station agreed to take us for $20, but he wanted to wait awhile to see if the traffic let up some. We didn’t think it was going to get any better anytime soon, so we continued to ask.   Finally a nice young man agreed to let us ride with him, he was getting off work and he lived in Atkins.  Plus, he knew the back roads and we didn’t have to be detained by the traffic at all.  In a short while we were in Atkins at the Comfort Inn.  This time we used a coupon this time from a coupon book that we had picked up at the gas station.  It was $10 cheaper than our first night here, but we got two double beds so I think it would have been the same as the hiker rate for a king size. 

We had a great hamburger at Atkins Tank restaurant located inside the Exxon Station and then retired for the night at the Comfort Inn.