Week 8 - 2022
WEEK EIGHT of HOBOS GOING SOBO IN THEIR OBOZ, the journey "in-tents"ifies ...
Daleville, VA 45 miles, average 11 miles a day. Total miles so far = 468 miles! 140 miles left!
WHAT WE LEARNED THIS WEEK ON THE TRAIL:
After a week in a hotel room, of pure comfort and real food, do you know how hard it was for us to strap on our backpacks and head back for the woods?! Ugh! Let me tell you - it was hard! Not rock hopping hard but failing to get motivated hard! We enjoyed every minute of luxury but are now thinking we wish we hadn’t done it for so long. We got pretty comfortable.
We spent three days editing our book. We were very pleased with the editing done by the publisher. We’re still not done looking over the manuscript but will continue next week when we stop at a hotel again. Disclaimer: we have added new things to the manuscript so we take full responsibility if punctuation and grammar are incorrect since the editor will not be proofing any of our changes.
We couldn’t stay away - we slackpacked (just wore a daypack) three days and then put our full backpacks on the last day and headed for the trail. Weather was very hot on days we slackpacked (high 90s) and finally cooled down (high 70s) for the full pack. What a switch from last year-so cold to extreme high temperatures this year.
Big Week! We finished the Triple Crown! Dragon’s Tooth, McAfee Knob and Tinker Cliffs. Where do we get our tee shirts - we survived the triple crown! Rocks and scaling rock walls and all!
Speaking of the rock wall: it was cute when two young men stopped us and were very concerned for our safety in doing the climb up to Dragon’s Tooth. “You realize you will have to scale the wall and it’s very hard and steep.” Awww! I loved that they were so concerned and worried for us! Don’t they know who we are…We’re FROG and Faith, we’ve got this! It was a FUN climb and I sincerely mean that. It was one time the rocks did NOT get the best of us!!!
FROG spent a lot of time pigging out! You don’t need to worry about him. He will most definitely be putting weight back on if he eats like he did this week.
This is really gross but FROG wanted me to show you his toes. SORRY!! He has six toenails that are black and blue. In everyday life he is constantly stubbing his toes, it hasn’t stopped on the trail. If there’s a tree or root stub sticking up in the trail he will most likely find it! Poor guy! I think he wants your pity so play it up good, y’all!
When eating our protein bar this morning for breakfast on the trail we couldn’t help but think back to a hiker we met, Eternal, after we offered one to him. His response: “I don’t eat anything that looks the same going in as coming out!” We thought that response was hilarious! Not sure why I felt you needed to also hear this useless tidbit of information. Use however you wish, you’re welcome.
Trail Magic hits once again! A young couple, Ember and Bluejay and their 5-week-old baby, Laurel, were handing out fruit, cookies, candy, and drink. Nice surprise to hear from other hikers it was coming up. We always have extra pep in our step when you hear that news hoping we make it there in time.
To our snake loving friends: do we REALLY have any?! We need help identifying a baby snake we came upon. We thought it was a garter at first but now wonder if it was a baby rattler? It quickly came into defense mode. We hear they don’t have a rattle yet and more dangerous because they haven’t learned to control their venom yet. Look at the picture and let us know.
On a more serious and very tragic note. On May 29, a hiker, Paul “Grandmaster” Classen, age 23 from the Netherlands fell 50 feet off of McAfee Knob when he got up after eating breakfast and we think he lost consciousness which led to his fall. He died later that day from his injuries. It has devastated us hikers especially those that knew him. It was a somber time when we hiked there this week. All I could think about was his family, especially his mom. Prayers are needed as they deal with this devastating loss.