Appalachian Trail SOBO Day 86 – Angels Rest, Pearisburg
20th October 2023
Bailey Gap Shelter (1537.8) - VA route 100 / Pearisburg (1561.4)
Daily miles: 23.6
Total miles: 1570.7
I passed out pretty quickly and when my alarm went off at 6am I turned it off immediately and reset it for 6:30am. May Queen’s alarm went off at 6:15am and she also turned it off. I needed more lying down time; my legs and feet felt pretty rough but nowhere near as bad as they felt last night.
We eventually started moving and I didn’t really have anything for breakfast so I ate the rest of my Pringles and had a hot chocolate. I carried excess water so I gave some to May Queen for her coffee. We were really taking our time packing up and Cal arrived at the shelter.
Hot chocolate and Pringles in the dark for breakfast
I was just thinking about going and it started to rain which I wasn’t expecting. Toe arrived. She camped 3.6 miles back at the trailhead. She got up at 04:45am and was hiking by 5:15am but she still didn’t have a working headlamp and her phone was at 20%, and she broke her charging cable, so she was in a pretty bad way. She was very happy to see we were still at the shelter.
A slow morning
We ended up leaving at 8am which was later than planned but it was raining and we didn’t want to move!
We hiked together for a bit and we got to a big bridge where we filled up on water. I had my umbrella but the others were trying to hide under the leaky stairs.
It’s raining
Raining and cold
Lovely big bridge
Lemonhope getting water
Trying to stay dry even though we are already soaked
We hiked on and it was a bit of an uphill, actually quite a big uphill so I got left behind pretty quickly! It’s easy to think that everyone is really far ahead but every time Toe and May Queen stopped to pee or layer up / delayer I caught up to them so I wasn’t really that far behind. The climb was mostly switchbacks so although I was struggling to move my weary body the climb wasn’t actually too bad. The rain was also not too bad to manage, and I wasn’t cold with just my rain jacket on, but I wasn’t hot enough to take it off. I regulated my temperature by taking my hat on and off.
The trail was pretty in the mist and through the manzanita trees. It stopped raining near the top of the climb and I was able to put my umbrella away for a bit. I was at the back this morning and I don’t like being at the back, but I passed Toe and May Queen as they were stopped to put more layers on and then I caught up to Lemonhope and passed him too so now I felt a bit more relaxed.
Wet but beautiful
The forest is changing again
Happy that it has stopped raining
The leaves have gone
Lots and lots of leaves on the trail and I pick them up on my trekking poles, I notice them when they start to get heavy.
Into the mist
Collecting leaves on my trekking poles
I had started to dry out a bit and it was getting mistier and mistier and then the rain came back with a vengeance. It was sideways and the temperature plummeted and it was icy. There were even bits of hail in the rain. It poured for about half an hour and I was so cold. My hands in particular were freezing and I had to put my trekking poles under my arm and walk with my hands ballled into fists to try and keep my fingers warm. I had those nice new waterproof gloves in my bag but it was too cold and wet to stop and get them out. Eventually it stopped raining and warmed up a bit and I started to descend which also helped with the temperature.
Catching up to Lemonhope, just before the rain came in sideways
The trail came out of the trees and onto some fields where the trail was a bit of a slip and slide. My feet were soaked through and very very cold at this point. I walked in the grass to avoid the mud as my feet couldn’t get any wetter.
May Queen caught up to me and we hiked together for a short time until I had to stop to pee around 1:30pm (my first pee of the day since this morning - I hadn’t drink anything since that hot chocolate) and I got my gloves out of my pack. I struggled to get them on because my hands were wet and sticky.
After the downpour
Putting the new gloves on after I really needed to put them on
Finally the sun came out around 2:30pm and the trail went up through some open fields which was nice. At the top of those fields was a shelter where Cal and May Queen were eating lunch and I stopped to join them. There was another guy there, a section hiker.
It turned into a lovely day
With some nice views
The threat of rain was ever present
Apple Cider break
I couldn’t be bothered with food so I made an apple cider to get some fluids in me and ate about 4 fingers of cookie batter straight from the jar.
I went to pee behind the shelter and it was nice to feel the warm sun on my cold bare bum. Lemonhope caught up and he said Toe had stopped for lunch at the first open field so she was behind a bit. It was starting to get cold as it always does when we stop for more than a minute so we left the shelter at 3:30pm and set out to do the last 7 miles to town.
We hiker trained and chatted on the way which made the time go quicker, and May Queen took the pace down on the bit of an uphill we had to do so I could keep up! The first half a mile was the hardest as our feet were numb after sitting at the shelter and getting cold, so it was like walking on stumps; my ankles feel like they are fused and don’t bend.
Cold and sunny
Hiker train to town
We walked past a landfill site which was a bit stinky and then as we got closer to civilisation we got nearer factories pumping out whatever they were pumping out, and that was pretty stinky too.
Some pretty unpleasant smells around here, and not just us
We crossed a big long bridge over the river New and after a tiny bit of trail - which was probably the biggest struggle of the day for me because my problem little toe was hurting so much that I had to walk with my toes scrunched up - we came to the trail head where were were going to be picked up by a shuttle from the hostel.
Big bridge energy
We checked Toe’s location and she was about a mile behind so she had actually made really good time (she said she had been running to catch up!) and arrived about 25 minutes after we did.
Our shuttle picked us up and drove us to Angels Rest hostel which is only about a mile away and we got there at 6:20pm
We were all starving by this point. My stomach felt like it was eating itself (having a drink would have probably helped) so we had showers and threw our clothes in the laundry. I didn’t do all of mine this time, just the really stinky wet things.
Rabbit Foot was there and a bunch of other hikers; some section people and 4 other SOBOs who we would meet later.
I was thankful to find some loaner shoes in exactly my size so I didn’t have to go out in my wet hiking shoes. I put some loaner clothes on, I didn’t go for style like Toe and May Queen, I went for what ever looked the cosiest, which was a nice feeling T-shirt and a pair of very pale pink joggers which looked like I wasn’t wearing anything.
Loaner clothes
There was a cute dog at the hostel and he took a while to sniff the bites on the back of my leg. This was slightly concerning because dogs are good at smelling infections and things aren’t they? They don’t appear to be getting that much better but they also don’t appear to be getting worse.
Feels like it’s healing nicely
Not sure how well these bites are healing
The shower felt so good and warming up my cold cold feet felt the best. When everyone was ready we went out for Mexican food and ended up eating at 8pm just as I was about to either keel over from hunger or get angry with the waiting staff for taking so long to seat us.
The menu was overwhelming. Mexicans always are but essentially it’s the same ingredients just presented or wrapped in a slightly different way. Anyway, I chose very well with chicken fajitas. It was huge and I ate literally every single scrap to the point where I was in physical pain. I also had 2 Dr Peppers and drank not a single sip of water.
An enormous plate of chicken fajitas
The only thing I didn’t like was that I felt rushed and it wasn’t particularly relaxing because we were conscious of getting back to the bunk room before everyone was tucked up in bed and asleep. We went to the supermarket afterwards to get snacks for tomorrow, I didn’t really need anything but I got 3 chocolate bars. We are doing 11 miles tomorrow to another hostel and taking a half day off so we don’t need a lot of food.
I was almost doubled over in pain walking around the supermarket. My stomach felt like it was stretched at its limit. I remember last time I was in this supermarket in 2018 I very nearly shit my pants after eating some terrible Chinese food.
We walked back to the hostel which thankfully had a little blue blazed back trail so we could get there quicker and we were pleased to see the lights still on in the bunk room. We chatted for about half an hour with the others. Met 2 of the other SOBOs briefly, Jet and Howard, and then the lights got turned out just before 10pm – which is late for us hikers!
Inside the bunk room at Angels Rest hostel
Lying here now it’s 10:30pm and my stomach still feels uncomfortably full but I’m not in terrible pain anymore.
