This is a pretty boring section of the Appalachian Trail in Shenandoah National Park in my opinion, offering few views, no water features, and no water other than at the hut. Starting at the Turk Gap parking at Skyline Drive mile post 94.1, I followed the AT North for approximately 8.8 miles, stayed at Blackrock hut and returned. Blackrock hut is nondescript and has an unreliable water source. Distance hiked this weekend was 17.8 miles. Approximately 4.1 miles North of Turk Gap, there are several nice tent sites (legal). There is no water at the tent sites.
I drove 6.5 hours down to the Appalachian Trail Days Festival in Damascus, VA again this year: http://www.traildays.us/
If you see yourself in the parade, drop a comment and time! Parade starts at 5:35 Odie’s speech is at 14:25
It was pretty rainy on Friday and the mood seemed on the somber side compared to other years. That being said, Saturday turned out to be a pretty good day weather wise and I was able to visit all the vendors and get to the parade without getting too wet. Finally ran into “Florida Girl Adventures” in the parade: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqL91M57UCsY1xHv_AFmXvw
Went fishing this morning at St. Mary's Lake in Southern Maryland and met up with RhinoFishing TV and RockEastwood Outdoors @5:45 in video. They were out on kayaks and I fished from shore. Rocky is moving out of the area soon and figured it would be fun to meet up and do some fishing before he left. If you have not checked out either of their great channels, please do so, leave a like, and subscribe! We'll miss you here Rocky and will continue to follow your adventures online.
Short AT section hike - parked at Beagle Gap and hiked to McCormick Gap and back. Goal was to connect some stranded AT miles on my section hike and to see the tractor seats. While I was up there, I decided to find the benchmark for the peak. It was a little tricky, actually 0.3 miles south on the AT on the way to the second tower, not at the peak. The peak benchmark seems to be missing but I found the drill hole. I found one offset and also some of the references in the datasheet. https://www.ngs.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/ds_mark.prl?PidBox=HW3342
Picked up one of these to try and lighten my pack weight a little. I’ve
been using a ZebraLight H52W as my headlamp and it uses AA batteries. Rather
than carry additional AA batteries, I now carry a single Fenix ARB-L14-1600U
Li-ion rechargeable. What I like about this unit is the integrated USB port and
charger. I already carry an Anker PowerCore 13000, so charging this tiny battery
for my headlamp is easy. This battery weighs 19 grams. For comparison, a
standard Duracell AA weighs 25 grams and an Energizer Ultimate Lithium weighs
15 grams. Although not the lightest battery, I only need to carry one.
**One issue to note so far is that the battery is current limited and
self protection circuit trips when using the ZebraLight on its highest
settings.
This was a great hike ~7.5 miles one way from Pine Grove Furnace State Park to James Fry Shelter. Parking is plentiful at Pine Grove Furnace. To park overnight, you need to fill out a pass which is available in the plastic box next to the front door of the office. The pass goes in the mail slot after you fill it out. Parking is just down the hill and there is a restroom right there where the Appalachian Trail crosses the parking lot. Very nice! There was far more snow up on the ridge than at the parking lot and much more than the zero snow in southern MD. Some of the drifts over the rocks in one short section were knee deep. Most of the trail had already been broken by a couple other hikers and some cross country skiers. On average, the snow was around 10-12” deep. This would be an easy section in clear weather, there is not much elevation change and the trail is not very rough. Water at the shelter must be unreliable based on my personal observations and some graffiti on the shelter blue blaze right at the AT. The shelter was nice and the surrounding campsites also looked nice. The privy is super awesome. There is a bear box for food behind the shelter. I did hike in wet socks the next day to save my dry ones. It was not that bad. What I did not like was frozen shoes. I need to learn better technique for dealing with this. Oh, and wool socks burn – don’t ask me how I know. ☹
