Appalachian Trail Section hiking: Brush Mountain to Va. 624

Brush Mountain to Va. 624

Day Thirteen – Saturday, April 5, 2014

12.7 miles
7:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Audie Murphy Monument (Photo by Bryan Turner)

We broke camp at 7:30 and started on up the mountain, expecting to see the Audie Murphy Monument in a short while. Forty-five minutes later we saw it. On the way up, we had speculated how hard it must have been to build the monument way up here on top of the mountain, then when we got there, we saw that there was a road coming up to it. Good thing, otherwise, there would be very little visitation to the monument, I believe.

The monument commemorates Audie Murphy who was the most deocrated American soldier of World War II. His single-handed capture of a large number of German soldiers made hima legend. After the war, he starred in many Hollywood war and western movies. He died in a 1971 plane crash near this site. (Thru-Hikers Companion)

After the long, hard climb up the mountain we were pleased to find upon leaving the monument that the trail followed a nice, wide rut road on top of the mountain for a while. We were now looking forward to reaching Dragon's Tooth. As we came around the side of one mountain and looked to the next, I was sure that we could see Dragon's Tooth on the top. As we reached that point, I thought we had reached Dragon's Tooth and was very under-impressed. Obviously, I did not know about Dragon's Tooth, because I thought we had surely reached it about four times before we actually did. By the time we got there, I was wondering, "Just how many teeth does this Dragon have???" We crossed peak, after peak, after peak, then suddenly heard people talking below us. Looking down, we saw lots of people on the trail coming up the mountain from the north side. We wondered what that was all about. Then we encountered the sign for Dragon's Tooth.

Oh! Now we know what Dragon's Tooth is. It is a huge boulder sticking up into the sky like a - well, like a Dragon's Tooth, I guess. The Hiker's Companion does not say much about Dragon's Tooth but obviously it is a very popular day hike for the locals. There were people all over the place, going up and down the rock faces like it was no big deal (except for a few wary ones). But to me, it was a big deal trying to get down the path of boulders with a backpack. It seemed very dangerous and quite tricky to keep from falling face first off the enbankments. In several places, there were hand grips inserted into the boulders which did help some.

When we finally reached the bottom of the mountain, there was a big camping area where some tents were set up and a short trail to the parking lot. But we still had 1.5 miles to go to get to Highway 624. It was more rock scrambles, but nothing like we had already done.

We reached Highway 624 then walked about a half mile east to 4 Pines Hostel. While walking there, Dr. John from North Carolina came up behind us walking lickety split. He was going to stay at 4 Pines Hostel tonight and continue on hiking to Harper's Ferry.

When I took my boots off and removed a piece of tape that I had on the top of my foot where it had been rubbing, the skin came off with the tape! Ouch! Now I had a pretty bad spot to worry about.

We showered and changed at the hostel, then headed out intending to eat at the Homeplace Restaurant, famous among hikers for the All You Can Eat meals. However, the number of people waiting in the yard of the restaurant encouraged us to continue on to find a quicker place to eat. I believe it was the Catawba Quick Stop where we had sandwich and pizza. Not like Homeplace, for sure, but it filled us up.

We then drove up to Troutville where we spent the night in the Quality Inn.