Today's miles 21.1. AT miles 1010.3
We passed the 1000 mile mark today!!!
Another early wake up for us, 6:30am. All the other hikers seem to be getting up earlier and earlier, with the lighter daylight hours I suppose. We'll have to start following suit soon as the weather gets hotter to walk in the cooler hours. I also keep forgetting to mention, the songbirds in the forest in the mornings sound beautiful, an amazing early dawn chorus.
We were on the trail for 8am again this morning as we had a big hiking day ahead of us. We had 'The Roller Coaster' ride today, described as '13.5 miles of tightly packed ascents and descents.' The PATC (Potomac Appalachian Trail Club) had a warning notice as we started this section. We think it's hyped up too much, The Roller Coaster was definitely a kids version, not an adult version. We were expecting really steep ups followed immediately by really steep downs with no flat in between, repeatedly over about ten humps averaging around 500ft elevation gain/loss. It turned out not to be very much different to any other day hiking the AT with constant ups and downs. There was no section too steep and plenty of flatter sections, it was however quite rocky in places. The most challenging part was hopping across all the streams that were running high after all the rain a few days ago.
After all the rain and now the warm sunny days the forests have suddenly turned from brown to green at the lower elevations and look really pretty. The trees will be providing us with much needed shade soon when it gets even hotter. After ten and a half miles we arrived at Snickers Gap, a busy road junction. Just down Pine Grove Road was the, recommended by Nazcar and Bullwinkle, Horseshoe Curve Restaurant where we stopped for lunch. A lovely pub style restaurant, the food all prepared fresh. Nigel had a roast beef sandwich with onion rings, the biggest onion rings we'd ever seen and I had a ham and swiss sandwich with fried zucchini (courgette) plus we had a bowl of fries to share. Highly recommended if passing. It was all delicious, we were extremely full afterwards, we needed nothing else to eat all day luckily. We had planned to get some food resupplies today on route, we were passing two places that were supposed to offer hiker resupply options, both were closed. We did have a back up plan as the only food we had left were 2 packets of ramen noodles that we carry as emergency food 'just in case' plus two small granola bars & one cliff bar.
After lunch we still had 10.5 miles to go, three more miles of the roller coaster then the trail levelled out a bit. Just after rejoining the trail after Snickers Gap we passed the 1000 mile mark. There was a sign marking the spot apparently but we missed it. We stopped for more water at a spring at the end of the roller coaster, it was a very warm humid day, not particularly sunny which was a blessing otherwise it would have been too hot. We passed a large Black Rat snake today on the side of the trail, it must have been five to six feet long. Not a poisonous variety. The last three miles to the David Lesser Memorial shelter seemed to take forever, we walked across a boardwalk then the paths seemed to get easier but then would suddenly become very rocky again. We arrived at 6:30pm. Team Berlin and Iron Man were at the shelter when we arrived so it was great to see them all there, Iron Man must have passed us whilst we were having lunch. They were all sleeping in the shelter, we went to pitch our tent then joined them later for a chat. It's great to all be at the same trail position again, not sure how long it will last we all have different hiking plans.
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