Fighter Pilots Need to Learn from Tom Cruise

On the 16th, we left Pearisburg late but managed to do 11.9 miles to Symms Gap to camp, 5 miles past Rice Field Shelter. On the 17th, we did 8.6 miles to Captain's, where we basically had to stay. On the 18th, we did 6.4 miles to VA 613 where we got picked up by UV's faux family.

After eating all of the ice cream in Pearisburg, we finally made it out of town. This involved a few miles of road walking, which is quite boring. The first time we did it, it was kind of a change of pace but mountains are much more enjoyable to walk along than highways. Once we got back in the woods and had climbed back up onto the ridgeline that is the hiker highway, we finally hit an area that actually had a nice view (photo below). We decided to go past the first shelter out of town and were rewarded with a great grassy mountaintop campsite with a view.

The next day we got to "Captain's." To get over the stream to Captain's house, he has set up a zip line chair contraption. It worked quite well (photo below). Captain offers free cold drinks on his back porch, a nice lawn for tenting, sleeping spots on his covered back porch, and use of his bathroom. What a great place to stay since we only had to do six more miles before noon the next day. It did feel strange just opening the door to his house and wandering through his living room to use the bathroom while he and his wife just sat on the couch watching TV. I'm not sure I could completely open my entire life to hundreds of hikers every year, but it makes for a great place to stay.

This isn't the best forum for this suggestion/complaint but it's what I have... F15 pilots, why do you feel it is necessary to buzz the mountains? It is mildly disconcerting to have one or more fighter jets zip seemingly directly overhead when you are on the trail. I think Tom Cruise definitively proved that cool fighter pilots buzz flight control towers. Don't you want to be cool fighter pilots?

Oh, and I saw my biggest snake yet (photo below). My best guess is somewhere around 4-5 feet long.

This is a short update but I would prefer more short updates (means I have to procrastinate less) and I wanted to make it so Trail Days had a post all to itself. It should be interesting, I should have that post up sometime on Sunday.