3/28/00
Day 6
Laundromat in Front Royal, VA
54.4 miles
Going to spend the night in town, mostly so I can get a meal and a shower. Too early to get a room probably, so I stopped here to detoxify my clothes. I have ended up doing 10-mile days instead of 8 because that is how the shelters are spaced out. Throughout the Shenandoah National Park, my next stretch of the trail, the shelters are about 13 miles apart. Not sure if I am ready for that. I could camp out and do shorter days, but I'm heading into bear country and that means extra precautions if I don't use the bear pole at the shelters.
And there's an additional, unexpected problem. There are a series of public concessions, called "waysides", along Skyline Drive that parallels the AT. They offer Northbound thru-hikers an easy place to resupply and grab meals throughout Shenandoah Park. But I'm coming through too early in the Season for any of these to be open yet. Which means the slower I go, the more food I'll have to carry. And I'm going to have to hitchhike out of the Park from a road crossing at least once to resupply. I'll just have to work it out, but I don't like the idea of having to do 13 mile days, with a pack heavy with food, over a series of higher peaks - all of this early in the trip while my legs are just starting to strengthen and my blisters still need to heal. Well, no one said this would be easy.
Yesterday I got to the Denton shelter ("Hiker's Hilton") about 2:00. Thought that would give me some time to write but ended up piddling around until after supper and then dark, cold, and weary bones conspired to put me to sleep. Had the place to myself. Didn't see any other hikers that day or this morning. In contrast to the weekend when I saw dozens of day-hikers and passed 2 troops of scouts.
I spent my second night at a place called Bear's Den Hostel, owned by the
ATC. Had electricity and hot showers (hotcha!) Melody, the manager, is a
former thru hiker. I asked her a few questions about what most people carried
for clothing. I have a 2nd pair of shorts and a shirt, but it seems most
people just wear the same thing day after day. So I guess having a 3rd pair
of socks is really excessive. Clean does not matter. What matters is wet or dry. Or
as Seven-of-Nine would say, "B.O. is irrelevant!"