Trip Report
Mama Bear (a hiking friend) and I drove from Nashville to Groseclose, VA on Friday, July 9, 2010. We left her car at Happy Hiker Hollow and a local hiking friend, Kinnickinic, met us there and shuttled us to the trailhead at Dickey Gap, where we hit the trail at 6:00 pm. It had rained hard in the area that afternoon and was still overcast and drizzly.
The 4 miles to Trimpi Shelter were well maintained with only moderate climbs. The evening mist gave a cool, comfortable feel to the woods and mountains of southwest Virginia. I hauled two gallons of water to the shelter, because the local trail club and others had told me that the spring at Trimpi was not reliable due to recent dry weather. (When I saw it, it did have a very tiny "stream" of water coming from the piped spring.) We picked up dry sticks the last mile and used them to build a nice fire in the fireplace inside the shelter. One hiker was there, in his tent out front, when we arrived. I chatted with him briefly, but he never left his tent the whole time we were there.
It looked like rain, so Mama Bear set up her tent, as I spread gear out in the shelter to dry. Later, as we sat in the shelter enjoying the fire around 10:00, another hiker suddenly showed up out of the darkness, spooking Mama Bear for a second. It was "Mufasa" a young southbound section hiker, hiking from Harpers Ferry to Damascus. He only had two days left, a 26-mile day and a 27-mile day, and looked in shape to do them. This was his first "night hike." He set up a hammock in the trees to sleep in. During the night, it rained off and on.
Saturday morning it was still overcast and was 68 degrees in the shelter. Mufasa hit the trail about 8:00. My breakfast was an orange juice and a bacon wrap. Mama Bear and I had a leisurely 10.6-mile hike to Partnership Shelter, so we didn't get out until 9:30. The trail from Trimpi is mostly downhill all the way to Teas Road at the South Fork of the Holston River, where we stopped for a snack. It was a busy place, as about a dozen vehicles went by in half an hour or so.
From the river we climbed back up on the ridge, passing farms off in the nearby valleys here and there. For a while, the trail followed the bed of an old narrow gauge railroad, used for timbering these mountains a hundred years ago. We met a family hiking southbound together for the weekend. They had old external frame packs that didn't fit and had baby diapers under the shoulder straps to ease some obvious discomfort, but all the same were in good spirits and having fun together.
We saw many, many very colorful mushrooms and fungii, and took many photos of them and wildflowers. We also saw the famous school bus parked in the woods along the Appalachian Trail. The morning started overcast and cool and the day finished with beautiful sunny blue skies and nice breezes.
We arrived at Partnership Shelter, which has a heated shower, a sink, and where you can use the phone at the Mt. Rogers National Recreation Area Visitors Center to order pizza and iced drinks. We did! Around dark Joe from Ohio (the tenter at Trimpi) showed up. He had left some gear in his truck back where he started, so decided to bail out here and hitchhike back to his truck. We chatted briefly, then he walked down to VA 16 at the VC to hitch a ride. We never saw him again.
Sunday morning it was 66 degrees at sun-up. Kinnickinic drove over from her nearby home and met us at the Visitors Center. She took Mama Bear's pack and most of the gear from my pack, so we could slack-pack all day. (Kinnickinic took our stuff to the Happy Hiker Hollow hostel for us.) We purchased some souvenirs in the VC before hitting the trail at 9:30 for a 12.7-mile hike past Groseclose at I-81. It was a sunny, but cool and nicely breezy morning. Perfect hiking weather. Again, we saw lots of colorful mushrooms and wildflowers.
We also ran into some thru-hikers. There was a mother ("4:13") and son ("Scooter") team doing a flip-flop and a hiker ("Etchasketch") who started last year and was finishing this year. They seemed to be having a great time living on the trail for several months. Today we found blueberries, blackberries, and apples. We also found a great rocky vista from atop one mountain, from which we could see for miles and miles, including traffic on I-81, our destination for the afternoon. We passed the Settlers Museum & Homestead and stopped at Lindamood School (c. 1840). While there, an ice cream van came down the country road, playing its chipper tune! We flagged it down and bought drinks and ice cream in the middle of nowhere. YUMM.
We crossed the Middle Fork of the Holston River, some railroad tracks, and stopped at the Exxon station at I-81 to tank up on Gatorade (Mama Bear downed a liter on the spot) and Strawberry milk (which hit the spot for me), before doing the last mile in 15 minutes to reach our shuttle pick-up point on time. That's 4 miles an hour, pretty fast hiking.
We spent Sunday night at the Happy Hiker Hollow hostel, got to take showers, have our clothes laundered, got fed a wonderful ACYE dinner, and slept in real beds. NICE!!! Rambunny and Aqua (past AT hikers) know how to treat hikers right.
Monday we only had 10.7 miles to do and again we were able to slack-pack. We had a huge breakfast at the HHH prepared by Rambunny from her own garden and fresh eggs from her own chickens. YUMM!!! At 8:30, she dropped us back off at the trailhead in a pouring thunderstorm. You know what they say, "No pain, no rain, no Maine." Mama Bear and I were good to go in the warm summer shower. Well, maybe it was cool actually, but we knew hiking would warm us up, so off we went, soaked to the skin. However, within about 15-20 minutes the rain stopped, though it did leave a nicely cool mist.
Though we passed many more colorful mushrooms, the off-and-on drizzly rain meant we could not stop to take photos. Plus, this section of trail has no shelter, so we would not be stopping for a lunch out of the weather. We had asked for a 5:30 pick-up time, but as the day progressed, we decided to move our time up to 3:30. We got cell service on a mountain top and called Skip, our shuttle driver for the day, to change our pick-up. Thankfully, we would not have to sit for two hours waiting on our ride!
The trail went through a big cow pasture, which did indeed contain a herd of cattle, including one big mama standing exactly on the trail, nursing her calf. We chose to walk around her, while avoiding all the cow patties!
The mountains were covered with low clouds and mist. We finally came to the North Fork of the Holston River and saw the antebellum Tilson's Mill there. From there it was just a hop, skip, and jump through another cow pasture, across another stream, and over another hill to VA 42 at the O'Lystery Community. We came out of the woods at 3:25 and Skip was waiting on us for the drive back to Happy Hiker Hollow, where we showered, changed into clean clothes, and hopped into our car for the drive back to Nashville, tired and happy after knocking another 38 miles off the AT.
See the link one post below for an album with many more photos.
Rain Man
P.S. In one photo below, you see another section hiker, also named Raymond, with Mama Bear on the balcony of the HHH after dinner. He was staying there also.
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Originally Posted by slowhike
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