Waynesboro Virginia

June 7, 1999 - Waynesboro Virginia

Hello from Waynesboro Va.

This is month 3

This is day 68

Current Miles are 836.6

The good news: My ankle problems are all gone away.

The bad news: The Post Office seems to have misplaced my bump

box. For those who don't know, a bump box contains

items that you don't want to carry from town to town,

but want to use to resupply basics such as Ibuprofen

or contains your town clothes, so you don't have

to wear you rainfly, while you wash the rest of

your clothes.

Once your mail turns up missing, the renown customer

service takes over, and they throw up their hands.

Worst case scenario is that it shows up in Atlanta

eventually, and when they have time they open up

the box to determine where to send the remains.

I am taking off two days here in Waynesboro. I had originally

had one on the schedule, but pushed ahead to get here about one

half day ahead of time. The miles that it took to do the pushing

were:

thurs: 15.1

fri: 20.2

sat: 20.5

sun: 18.1

I don't feel to bad today, but at the end of each day, I was dragging.

The temperature here was in the high 80's with lots of humidity.

The next section is in the Shenandoah National Park and is about

107 miles long. This should be an easier hike for several reasons:

There isn't as much up and down.

There are several lodges scattered along the route

There are even more restaurants scattered along the route.

There are even more camp stores scattered along the route.

The next two stops are:

Front Royal Virginia estimated due date 15 june 99

Harpers Ferry WV estimated due date 19 june 99

Harpers Ferry was known as the unofficial half way point of the trail,

but since its designation years ago, the current data is 1000/2160

miles.

Virginia was somewhere around 546 miles. I will be glad when it

is done, since it has the most miles of any state.

There is an upcoming stretch of the trail where you will be in

4 states over 40 miles. Some of the hard core hikers try to do this

in one day. I think that I will be content to do it over several days.

Dirk has written me about having a graph of my physical attributes

such as weight and calf girth versus trail miles. All I know is that

such metrics are hard to pin down. Here are the few I know.

Damascus Va - lost about 15 lbs

Pearisburg Va - One day down 25 lbs, next day about 18

Catawba Va - two different scales , down about 30 lbs.

Waynesboro - ??????????

For those familiar with LSID, I have told folks that I look like

Mike Hall ( with white hair and a beard ) when he was about

half way through his weight loss program.

Other minor facts:

My ankle is no longer bothering me.

My appetite is increasing, but I still need the town stops.

Most of these trip reports have been written in the local

libraries, where they are very generous with their computer

time

Since my ankle injury, I use my poles 100% of the time. Those

of you who had hiked with me in the past knew that I carried them

about 50% of the time.

I am thinking of replacing/resoling my boots. The soles

are losing part of their waffle profile.

I will be replacing my hiking shorts. The ones I now have

are falling apart. I resewed the pockets and then applied

super glue to keep the seams from coming apart.

I am having a difficult time keeping the baskets on my

trekking poles. The baskets get caught in the rocks and pull

off, never to be seen again, unless you are looking at your

poles all the time.

This hike is almost like a job:

get up in the morning

start hiking

take breaks

more hiking

lunch

more hiking

the path is much more linear

it is easier to schedule

it is easier to accomplish goals in a timely manner.

there is almost no paperwork to account for.

Although there is a finite time to accomplish the hike,

it is doable, since many have done it in the past. :-)

SINCE I WILL HAVE ONE MORE DAY OF INTERNET TIME HERE IN WAYNESBORO

LET ME KNOW IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS.