When I arrived at Shenandoah National Park, I decided I wanted to stay in the park for two nights and hike.  I had plenty of food, access to water, and camping gear.  However, when I arrived to the park I realized I didn’t have access because I was without my National Park Pass.  I tried to reason with the park rangers and show them photos of the card sitting on my desk at home, but not luck.  The one ranger came out of the booth and walked behind the building with me and handed me a map.  She explained to me that I could just go over to one of the trails down the road (which was outside of the park) and simply hike the trail into the park and avoid the $8.00 fee for hikers.  I thanked her and headed out for the trail.  Typically I wouldn’t avoid paying access fees to a National Park because I think they deserve every penny, but I had already bought access and was just stuck in a technicality.

As I was hiking I was feeling great.  The weather was perfect and the trail was gorgeous.  I decided to go to the Dickey Ridge visitor center and pick up a backcountry camping permit so I could camp in the park that night.  It was about five miles away and would take me a few hours to get to.  It wasn’t long before I remembered that I stink at hiking, I really stink at hiking up hills, and it stinks even more when you have a 50 lb pack on your back.  Shenandoah is a mountain range and I opted to hike up one side of it.  I persevered though and eventually made it to the visitor center drenched in sweat.

When I arrived at the visitor center I discovered I was 20 minutes too late.  The center closed for the evening.  I thought about how I wanted to go about my evening in the park, and ultimately decided I’d just let my dad know approximately where I’d be in case anything happened.  I took a look at my super official trail map (this is sarcasm) and decided to head towards an old mill and camp nearby.  The hike there was pretty easy, and I eventually arrived.  I was tired and had never really camped like this before.  I decided to set up camp early to make sure I did everything properly.  I looked for a good spot to set up my tent out of sight of the trail and a certain distance away from the mill as Shenandoah’s camping rules stated, but found that the only decent spot I could find had some fresh bear poop nearby.  This freaked me out so ultimately I broke basically all the rules and camped right in front of the mill next to the trail.  I hadn’t seen a single person hiking all day so I figured it wouldn’t be a big deal.  Sorry Shenandoah, I tried!  I decided to eat a bag of Campbell’s soup cold and then repacked all of my food into my dry bag and hung it up in a tree downwind of me.  Didn’t want any hungry critters bugging me in the night.  I got into my tent around 8:30 and listened to some tunes as I drifted off to sleep.

The night was rather cold and I remember waking up chilly around five in the morning.  I tried to stay warm until the sun came up and drifted in and out of an uncomfortable sleep.  I discovered then that a low of 40 was pretty much the limit for my camping setup.  Once the sun came up I packed up my gear and made sure to Leave No Trace.  I began my hike towards the Appalachian Trail which I wanted to hike around 10 miles of.  It took me a few hours and again it was a solitary trek, but I arrived.  On my arrival I was halfway through my water supply and had no idea where the next spring would be. I hiked the trail a short distance and concluded the destination I wanted to get to was simply too far to hike in the time frame I wished.  I decided to try hitching a ride to the next visitor center.  I was very fortunate because I noticed a guy walk over to his car and I asked if he could take me down the road 15 miles.  He said he was headed that way so I jumped in and off we went.  We talked for awhile and I found out he was a JAG officer and was hiking some trails for the weekend.  He was a nice guy and we soon arrived at my destination.  I thanked him and was on my way.

By this time my phone and backup charge was just about dead, so I spent some time at the visitor center to charge it up.  I sat out in the grass enjoying the weather and within a few minutes an AT thru-hiker popped a squat next to me.  He said his name was Spider-Mack (I think!) which was his trail name.  He had been hiking the trail from Georgia to Maine since March 7th.  He was a really cool guy and we talked about gear and our motivations for doing what we were doing.  I met some of his thru-hiking friends and they were all really cool.  He kept trying to offer me some of his food, but I continued to decline.  With what he was doing, food was much more critical for him than it was for me. I think I ended up chatting with him for two hours, but I needed to get going if I  was going to get to my evening’s destination.  I thanked him for all the advise he gave me about hiking and gear and the like, and was on my way.

My hike on the AT started off awful.  It was a very steep hill and it was grueling for me.  Eventually it leveled off though and I started passing a bunch of thru-hikers who were very friendly.  The majority of the rest of the hike was really enjoyable and I decided to head towards an AT hut for the night a few miles away.

When I finally arrived I was exhausted.  I had hiked about 15 miles mostly up hill, and that’s just not something I do.  I had read that the AT hut was reservation-based and that I’d need to set up camp nearby the hut, but was informed by the occupants it was first-come-first-serve and there was plenty of space.  The hikers were all very nice and I have to admit that I felt a little embarrassed when I was figuring out how to cook my dinner.  These hikers all had great gear and other than my pocket rocket burner, my cooking set kind is basically terrible.  I decided to make some rice and put my second bag of soup over it, but before I could start cooking the rice one of the hiker’s offered me her instant cheesy potatoes she said she wasn’t going to eat.  They looked delicious and she said she had no need for them, so I graciously accepted.  I boiled some water remembered how bad my cooking pot was as I spilled half of it as I lifted the pot (terrible design!).  Luckily I didn’t get burnt and there was enough left for my potatoes, so I mixed it up and made some really tasty dinner.

After dinner I cleaned up and started chatting with two of the younger hikers.  One of them was a crazy fast hiker who started a month after everyone else and had already caught up.  The other gentleman was from Germany and was only hiking for four weeks and started a few days prior.  We discussed CouchSurfing and proper ettiquette with that and hitchhiking in Europe.  I found out that hitchhiking in Eastern Europe is much more common and accepted than in Western Europe.  It started to get late (8:30 PM!) so we all headed to bed.

The night was pretty chilly again, but sleeping in the warmest corner of the hut (as per the suggestion of the hikers) made my sleep pretty comfortable.  In the morning I packed up my gear and headed out to the cross road that I planned to take out of the park a short 2 mile hike away.

My time in Shenandoah was interesting and I met some really nice people, but that was enough hiking for me and it was time to continue my way towards Miami.