Starting on the Water

This was written days ago but traveling in a mountainous river valley doesn't lend itself to good signal.

On the 13th, we did 12.1 miles to the north fork of the Piney River (2 miles before Seeley-Woodworth Shelter) and camped. On the 14th, we did 8.5 miles to Priest Shelter and I did roughly 3 extra miles down a steep hill hunting for a rumored free lunch; never found it. On the 15th, we zeroed at Priest Shelter since we were going to get into Waynesboro on Sunday if we didn't, and we needed to hit the post office. On the 16th, we did 13.8 miles to Maupin Field Shelter. On the 17th, we did 15.8 miles to Paul C. Wolfe Shelter. On the 18th, we did 5 miles to Route 250 and got a ride into Waynesboro where we stayed at the hiker hostel in the Grace Lutheran Church. On the 19th, we got our canoes and got put in the river north of Waynesboro and camped somewhere (river camping locations are going to be vague for the most part). On the 20th, we did some more river miles and camped in the corner of a corn field. On the 21st, we camped at the Newport Dam (it was our second portage of the day and we didn't want to get back in the water). On the 22nd, we did two more portages and camped seven miles after the Luray Dam, where the national forest runs along the river.

The hiking part of this post was actually a really nice section of trail. There were some great views at Spy Rock and some rock ledges along the trail. It wasn't too difficult of a trail either. The only other notable occurrence was one dinner when I was draining my pasta I dumped it all into a mud puddle. This was the saddest thing that had happened to me in a long time. I quite literally cried a bit. UV took pity on me and picked it out of the mud and rinsed it a little. The gritty Mac and cheese was most definitely a sadness meal. Despite this we made it to Waynesboro.

When I hit Route 250, I saw a minivan on the side of the road letting out hikers and hoped this would solve my problem of getting into town. It was none other than Santa's Helper who I met when he was doing trail magic way back on Wayah Bald in early North Carolina. He said he had been told we were coming into town today and was going to wait for us here. What a great guy. He is helping out with the hostel and is giving hikers rides all over town. The next day he drove UV to the doctor's and then both of us to lunch and ice cream. The doctor thinks UV has Lyme disease.

In town we called a bunch of people to see what our options were for aquablazing. The best one we could find was with Aquablaze Jeff. He has a pretty smart business model; we buy everything from him outright and when we get out of the water he buys it all back for less. This means he doesn't have liability if we hurt ourselves or if we take off with the boat. Seems like a great idea. It doesn't matter how many days it takes us or what we do; we will call him right before we get to Harper's Ferry and he will come up and pick everything up.

We got picked up at 2:00 and brought to what he considers the best starting point. It is a little north of Waynesboro but it avoids a very large rapids that you have to portage around so it seemed like a good idea. Once dropped off, we loaded everything into the boats and set off. It had been a long time since I had been canoeing. For the last ten or more years I have been almost strictly a kayaker. In the first two miles, on our third or so set of rapids, we swamped the canoe. It was more funny than anything and I promised to try a bit harder at steering in the future. We only lost our bailer (oh the irony) and my cold beverage.

Since then, I have become quite adept at navigating the numerous rapids in a most scrap free way. Sometimes there are rocks that I can't see or I get distracted by something and smack into a rock. Other times I just don't plan my route through the rapids enough and get stuck without a way clear of rocks half way through. It has been a complete new set of challenges and interesting experiences and I'm glad we decided to do it. Besides, I think 2012 miles hiked and 150 miles canoed sounds cooler then 2187 miles hiked. On top of that, Benton MacKaye (mastermind behind the AT) said he thought you should canoe this section when the Skyline Drive was put in since it would completely ruin that section of trail. So it's fun, new, interesting, and recommended by the mind behind the AT; seems like more people should do it for the full length not just a day or two like most people.

Well I guess it's on to more rapids, the biggest one we do is today. I'll probably write again once I get to Harper's Ferry and find my way into DC.