| Mile | 959.5 |
| Miles Since Last Update | 24.2 |
| Day | 78 |
Long as hell day. Last full day in Shenandoah. No bears seen yet.
Was real chilly this morning which was great. Ate breakfast at the hotel and left at 8ish. Still wasn’t really certain on my plan but figured I’d see how I felt by the 11 mile shelter. Some real nice views in the morning.
I could have climbed up a side trail to see Mary’s rock, which is apparently real popular because it was swamped with day hikers. I didn’t want to deal with the crowds and had a nice pace going so I skipped it.
Got to the 11 mile shelter at noonish so decided I’d push to at least get dinner at elkwallow wayside and then see what I could sort out.
Got to elkwallow by a little before 4 which was excellent. At this point I’d done 18 miles and was starting to feel the fatigue. Got a burger and the famous blackberry milkshake. Was alright, but it took forever to make for whatever reason. I waited around for my food with some folks there, Van Gogh, Caveman, and Mountain Chicken. By the time we’d gotten our food and eaten it, it was already past 5. I told them I was feeling froggy and was going to just push to the shelter and they told me I was insane for doing so. 6 more miles and 1500 more feet up on a stomach filled with blackberry ice cream and burger grease but I made it by 7 and the shelter was surprisingly empty. I feel like shit in every way possible though. Van Gogh showed up about 40 mins later and told me I was a bad influence. Also this shelter has a crowbar, hell yeah.
Easy 13 miles tomorrow. Going into Front Royal. Debating taking a zero there. I chopped a day off the schedule with this push and I’m probably not going to zero in Harper’s so it might be a play. My daily mileage avg (including zeros) is above 12 now, which puts me in a solid place if I want to finish around August.
