Mark's Trail Journal

Day 1 — 7 miles
US250 At Rockfish Gap to Calf Mountain Shelter
June 2, 2002

After a very restless night of imagining the adventure we would face, Jeremy and I awoke at 6am and headed west on I-64 from my parents house in Toano, Virginia to Rockfish Gap at the southern end of the Shenandoah National Park. We arrived at the visitors’ center at around 9am and grabbed our packs, double-checked that we had everything and headed off along the Appalachian Trail.

From the visitors center, the trail follows Skyline Drive for about a quarter of a mile. Both Jeremy and I realized how awesome this trip would be from the first while blaze painted on the asphalt. Soon the trail broke from the road and ascended into the cover of the forest.

We hiked over a couple wooded summits and then down towards McCormick Gap. On the way down we passed a trail runner who told us he had seen a couple bears near the gap. Jeremy and I kept looking out for them, hoping to get a photo; however we failed to see them. The trail climbed gently from the gap up to some open meadows. The two summits we passed along Bear Den Mountain would have been better if they were void of all the radio towers.

Descending from Bear Den Mountain we crossed vast fields, which when viewed from the ridge above, were distinctly bisected by the AT. Along the way we passed numerous areas with blackberry bushes in full bloom. Both of us wished the berries were in season and ready for picking, but it’ll be a few more months for that. We crossed Skyline Drive for the second time today at Beagle Gap and began one of the longer and steeper ascents of the day.

It was now a little after 11am and the sun was starting to get hotter. When we began, at 9am, it was in the upper 70s. By 11, I would guess the temp had reached the upper 80s. The heat and the hill gave us a bit of a workout, but nothing we couldn’t handle. All the training we’d done to get ready was paying off.

Once we got to the top of the hill we decided to take a look at the map. We set our bags down and studied the contour lines as to where we were. When we figured out where we needed to go and how much further it was to the shelter, I grabbed my pack to shoulder it but stopped to take a closer look. My backpack seemed to be crawling with ticks! I flicked 5 of them off before feeling that I had gotten them all.

Later, when we got into camp Jeremy had a lot of them crawling on his legs, He caught one just as it began to bury its head. Ticks are nasty creatures! We had another mile and a half to get to the shelter. We then went over the summit of Calf Mountain then down to the spur trail leading first to a spring, then to the shelter.

Compared to the shelters Jeremy and I had encountered on the Vermont Long Trail, this was luxurious. In front of the shelter there was a fireplace and a picnic table. Inside there was a lower sleeping platform and an upper sleeping platform. There was a porch area out in front as well. What we really liked about this shelter was the skylight.

After arriving at the shelter I visited the privy. Not the best smelling or cleanest I’d ever encountered, but definitely not the worst either. Jeremy ate his first Clif Bar ever and disagreed with the criticism he’d heard from others prior to the hike regarding the taste. We both thoroughly enjoyed our Clif Bar snack. We took a walk to the spring to fill up our water bag and then brought it back to the shelter so we could wash up and clean our clothes.