One-Third

Greetings from Daleville, Virginia! One-third through the AT, and only 130 trail miles to Waynesboro and the Shenandoah. Hiking with White Crow, Hungus, and Earthquake

Progress has been good since leaving Trail Days. I got to see a lot of my old friends from the 2005 thru hike and newer friends from 2007. It was great to let off steam, but after being out here for 7 weeks, you get used to spending a lot of time with just you and the trail. It gets to be sensory overload, and you look forward to getting back to the woods.

Our first day back, we took it easy...hiked about 6 miles in. Next day we did 19 miles so we could have the opportunity to stay at Dragon's Tooth. Terrific sunset before it sank behind some clouds.

The wildlife is really starting to come out now. Every day there are deer, pileated woodpeckers -- plus these really big lizards. Bigger than the ones on the Pacific Crest Trail...red head with a copper body.

After leaving Dragon's Tooth, we put in another 18 miles and made it to Tinker Cliffs. We all slept right next to the cliff itself -- I've been doing a lot of cowboy camping now that the weather's warm, and you don't really roll around a lot like you do at home, so sleeping next to the cliff isn't as dangerous as it sounds, plus it made for a beautiful morning. We hiked another 11 miles to Daleville

I'm gonna try and average around 12-13 miles a day up to Waynesboro. I'll try to get into town in the morning so I can maximize the amount of time I spend lining up a canoe for the NFCT portion of the trip. I'll also send Rob and Stan some more photo CDs, so hopefully those will be on the blog soon!

Take care!

Jason aka TDS


P.S. One more thing: Rob found this really cool Google Map/AT mash up that shows every shelter on the trail -- it's clickable and you can find out a little bit about each shelter by clicking on it -- be sure to bookmark it: http://www.cs.utk.edu/~dunigan/at/googleat.php?lat=39.9&lon=-78.1&scale=6