Project Eveningland

4/19/2023 Wednesday

The climb out of Pearisburg from the VA-100 trailhead passes industrial areas, and a landfill that has rendered a creek unusable—there’s a big sign warning you not to drink it. We passed rusted old cars now stranded in impossible places thanks to regrowth.

It is green and lush at the low elevations, but past a certain height there’s hardly any leaves on the trees yet, and no shade. The sky was a clear blue with only a few tiny clouds chugging across the sky. We reached Rice Field shelter at lunch time. I was having stomach problems. Wedge felt worn down by all the sun exposure.

I like Rice Field Shelter. It’s got a big open view of a city below, and a nicely maintained privy in the rear. You have to get water before the shelter, however. As I tried to mix a Liquid I.V. packet into my bottle of water, it exploded in a cloud of lemon-lime scented powder. Sigh.

Two miles north of Rice Field Shelter, along a hot, exposed ridge, there’s a campsite with a small spring below it, the last water for over ten miles. This water carry would be no big deal on the PCT or CDT, but there’s something about any carry longer than eight miles—it cramps your style. I filtered and drank a liter at the source and then filtered three more. I wanted us to be able to camp before the next water source. With so much food and water, the pack hung heavy on my back.

We climbed through more bare, bedraggled forest with trees that look quite dead. There are little gnats and flies everywhere. Even where it’s dry. They are worst in the flatter, more open areas with groves of small trees in full, white bloom and grassy, muddy soil.

We trudged through hot, sunny, bare forest for a few hours. I reached a rock with a good breeze going across it and stopped for a break. Wedge joined. I ate a solid snack and drank some water. We used our umbrellas to create shade. Wedge said he thought he no longer had enough water for a dry camp and suggested we would have to go all the way to Pine Swamp Shelter, which would have been a 20 mile day. I don’t have it in me, I thought. I offered to give him half a liter of my water, because I had carried a bit more out.

I suggested we go for a campsite about a mile from our rocky afternoon perch, for just over a 13 mile day. Eventually we decided to press on as far as we could and set our sites on a big campsite farther along with lots of flat spaces (according to the app). There is no water source listed, but I’d found an unlisted spring near there in 2021 and comments in FarOut (the navigation app) suggested it might still be flowing. Though, “found” might be overly generous as it makes it sound like I read the landscape and sought out a secret spring. Nah, there were blue ribbons tied to a tree back in 2021. I remember despairing of being out of water and still 4-5 miles from the next source. A terrible miscalculation. I think I was on the phone with Mom when I saw the wet patches from above and rejoiced. I felt I had been rescued.

Back in the present, we hiked past a tiny campsite and then became separated by maybe a tenth of a mile. As I rounded a bend I saw a gang I’d been hearing about. They attack hikers up here, stealing food, even poles. These forest toughs roam the landscape, feral, looking for salt. About six or seven goats were headed my way, in many different colors. I put my poles above my head and clacked them loudly. This seemed to work. The goats diverted around me and passed behind a rock, now headed in the direction I’d come from. “Hey man, we don’t want any trouble.”

There was an unexpected climb right before our endpoint. Once we’d made it to the top Wedge set up and I scouted ahead to try to find that spring which had saved me in 2021. It was .2 miles north, with only the slightest flow. I had to press down on a log with my foot, allowing a pool that had collected behind it to flow over a low spot in the log, draining some of the water into into Wedge’s CNOC bag, which he’d loaned me because it’s three liters (mine is only two).

I walked back into camp carrying 2.5 liters that I had painstakingly collected. I felt a hero, returning from a water expedition with precious, rare cargo.

It’s good to be sleeping in the woods. We’re on a wide saddle and the sun is setting right where our little flat area comes to a point. We are now past mile 650. It’s peaceful here, and I’m glad to be on my own schedule again.