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.