Travel Log: Hannah and Megan almost climb Mt. Rogers
(the highest peak in VA)

Wednesday – Now you know how truck drivers get flat butts
Megan drives 9 hours from Tennessee to DC passing Mt. Rogers on her way (little does she realize that she’ll be driving 6 hours back the same way the next day). Megan and Hannah speak on the phone and decide to pack in the morning and get an early start out of DC.

Thursday morning – Where are we going anyway?
First call of business is a lovely breakfast at Hannah's place and a pow-wow to confirm exactly where they are going. Sometimes it’s good to know these things. Second order of business, a much NEEDED trip to REI for maps, socks and other gear. They just manage not to buy the whole store but of course it takes longer than expected. Next stop is Fresh Fields for Insect Amor (supposed to be very good bug spay without deet) and groceries. As they are checking out they unwittingly steal a little old lady's grocery sack (unfortunately she didn't get anything at the salad bar that they considered edible). Then it's back to Megan's place to do a final pack (at this point Megan is thinking she should have packed the previous night).

Megan & Hannah stop for coffee in Front Royal.

Finally, Megan and Hannah, hit the road….Oh wait they forgot ice and muesli….a quick stop at CVS solves the problem of the ice but the woman at CVS has no clue about muesli (she probably thinks muesli is a type of anti-fungal cream). Ok, now they hit the road at the bright and early hour of 4pm and sit in DC traffic for a good long while (during this very exciting period Megan admits to Hannah that she has a fondness for large equipment). An hour and a half later after an exhausting exit from DC they make a pit stop in Front Royal for coffee (yes they actually have one espresso type coffee shop in Front Royal) and another search for muesli (they finally settle for granola). After bumping around in Front Royal for an hour Hannah and Megan get back on the road again.

Thursday night – Can’t see straight! Must stop!
At 8:30pm, after being on the road for over 5 hours and realizing that they still have at least another hour and a half of driving left they call it quits and hop off the highway at Dixie Caverns Campground, a convenient roadside campground (or maybe it should be called an RV Mecca). In the rental office the manager, a Dolly Parton look-alike with the housekeeping habits of an private detective (stale cigarettes, dead plants and papers all over the place), gives them a site for the night. After setting up camp they cook a lovely and huge dinner of fresh garden vegetables and hamburgers. They’re not really hungry after eating tons of snacks all day but they can’t let such an excellent meal go to waste. At around 2 am, Hannah makes a very necessary trip to the restroom and feels much better. 2:30am, a huge storm breaks loose and our heroines begin to wonder if their thermarests will float.

Megan, Hannah, and their surprise guest enjoy a meal of hamburger and yummy veggies from Megan's garden.

Friday AM – Flood survivors
Hannah and Megan are relieved to see that their camp has not washed away during the night. They eat a very small portion of what they had intended for breakfast (still full from the previous night), hit the showers for the final time before beginning their backpacker grunge fest, pack up their soggy tent, and continue on. They arrive at the Mt. Rogers National Park Visitors Center and speak to the very “knowledgeable” ranger (Not! When asked about the trails she admitted that she’d never even hiked in the park!). In the Visitor Center parking lot they spend 45 minutes re-packing several times, trying to fit all of their gear into their packs. They then jump back into the car and head for their departure spot, a small parking lot at Foxcreek. They arrive at the parking lot at 12:15pm and realize that their early start is not so early and decide to go ahead and eat their lunch (less weight to carry, right). After stuffing themselves yet again (possibly they brought too much food) they finally strap on their packs and hit the trail at the not so early hour of 12:45pm, with of course nice juicy ripe peaches in hand (Megan said "The're really too good to throw out even though we are completely stuffed"). Over the next several hours they hike for about 8 miles and experience spectacular “views” (“I think I see the sky!”). The weather remained fairly overcast and foggy with spotty showers all day.

Friday PM – Making camp
They arrive at their chosen campsite just as a steady rain begins and the fog rolls in. They boldly pass by the AT shelter full of guys, “Hi all, we’ve got a tent and we’re going to use it! What’s a little rain!” In the encroaching fog and cold rain, they find a very small patch of almost level ground (very popular with the wild ponies apparently as there are many horsey deposits scattered about) to hurriedly pitch their tent as the rain picks up. They find a nearby pine tree to huddle under as they cook dinner, at this point they really don’t care what they eat as long as it’s hot! As they finish dinner and brew tea, Hannah’s lips turn blue and Megan’s teeth begin to chatter so they rapidly drink their tea, hang their food bag, and retreat to the relative dryness of their tent. As they get settled for the night they realize that they may have been a bit too hasty in pitching their tent as it's at a crazy angle and they’ve put the head of the tent, you know the larger end where your shoulders go, downhill (Megan says, “If we hang on to the edges of our thermarests we should be fine”). Hannah and Megan snuggle up very closely, listing towards the downhill side of the tent and try to get some sleep. 2am in the morning, Megan awakens to very odd noises coming from close outside the tent. Her first incoherent thought is that they are surrounded by bears. As she lies there in the dark half asleep she realizes that the sounds are ponies munching the grass all around the tent (hmm, seems we’ve set up camp in the middle of an all night pony buffet).

Trying to dry out all of their gear the morning after. A lovely breakfast of special 11-serving granola and milk and of course tea!

Saturday AM – The aftermath
Megan and Hannah awake to a “lovely” morning of cold drizzly rain and mist (“Did we set up camp in a cloud?”). They groggily gather their gear, retrieve their food bag from the bramble patch (good thing ponies don’t seem to like bramble patches), and RETREAT back to the AT shelter to regroup, brew tea and have a warm breakfast of milk and at least 8 servings of granola (How can there be 11 servings of granola in an 8 oz bag?).

Hey it's kinda soggy but what a great day for hiking, right? And the views! Is that the sun! Oh, no it's only Megan's rain jacket.

After the shivering stops and they’ve dried off a bit they decide to forgo the hike to summit of Mt. Rogers as the fog is so thick they can only see about 15 feet down the trail (why torture themselves for no reason?). At noon they finally leave the shelter, another “early start”, in good spirits. On their way they of course pass tons of excellent campsites they could have used the previous night (if they could have seen them!). Once again as our heroines hike they experience “spectacular” (in their minds only) fog laden views and “Rhodo tunnels”.

After 3 hours of hiking in the fog Megan and Hannah break for a delicious lunch and of course more tea on a large rock with an almost view (they can make out the hazy outline of the next mountain top as the weather begins to clear a bit). As they are lunching, some friendly hikers pass by and ask them if the trail opens up to any views the way they’ve just come. Both Hannah and Megan give them a blank look and a “hmmm” as they pull out their map to try and see if there could have been some views hiding in the fog along the way.

Gourmet trail lunch compliments of Hannah, chef extraordinaire. (Megan get's the extra soup as she has the larger bowl. Ugh, too much food!) And finally a view!

Saturday PM – Is that the sun?
Megan and Hannah skip down the trail through the woods to the next AT shelter as the sun makes several appearances (ok so maybe they didn't skip but they wanted to). Our heroines have taken solemn vows to stay in the shelter this time if it's raining but luckily the sky seems to be clearing so they set up camp just below the shelter in a nice, roomy flat spot and hang all of their gear out to dry. Being extra intelligent and crafty beings Hannah and Megan decide to hang the rope for their food bag early so they won't have to search for a tree in the dark. They go the specified distance from camp and find a lovely tree, hang their rope, and then at Megan's brilliant suggestion, they attach a very small, inside out trail bar wrapper (the inside is silver and shiny don't ya know) to the rope to help them find it later. After a little rest and relaxation they mosey up to the AT shelter to have dinner with the other hikers and talk of the trail, hiking, dirt and all sorts of things. It's another lovely dinner, pasta with beef jerky (tip - stay away from the Sirloin tip jerky, yuk!) and dried veggies. Again Megan falls victim to the larger bowl and ends up stuffing herself with the extras ("I'll never eat again! And where is Dave when you need him? We definitely packed enough food for him!"). As they watch the sunset one of the boys who is camping with his father starts a campfire (Hannah just refrains from jumping in and taking over, "Give me that! Don't you know how to start a fire!"). After a lovely evening of chatting and enjoying the fire, Hannah and Megan pack up all of their food and confidently set off to hang their food bag. After 15 minutes of wandering around in the dark with only their headlamps -- you really can't see very far with a headlamp ("It should be just over here...Ok maybe it's over here...I thought it was further down the trail.. where's that %#@&# trail bar wrapper!") -- they abandon their search with lost-in-the-woods horror flicks running through their heads and settle for jamming it in a tree just across the trail. They settle down for a nice dry, level sleep in their tent.

Ahh sunshine! Excuse me is this a rummage sale or a campsite?

Sunday – Which way should we go?
A beautiful clear morning dawns on our heroines as they wake at the ever so early hour of 8am and enjoy a breakfast of 11-serving granola, warm milk, and dried apples and of course hot tea. After breakfast they pack up camp and decide they are not leaving the park without seeing an actual view. They have 2 choices: go back up to the summit to catch a view or go downhill to the parking lot and drive around to the other side of the park (which they have been told has spectacular views). Assured by the other hikers that it should take about the same amount of time for either, they decide to take the driving option and save some wear and tear on Megan's decrepit knees. The decision made they quickly hit the trail and arrive back at the car within an hour, toss their gear in the back, and head for the other side of the park and the promised spectacular views. As they are approaching the other side of the park 30 minutes later they notice that suddenly the sun is not shining, looking up into the sky they see dark ominous clouds rolling in. Nature seems to be conspiring against them. Arriving at their destination they park the car and quickly grab water and snacks and race up the trail, all the while the sky is getting darker. Up the trail (they only get slightly delayed by the numerous berry patches along the way) they finally get a decent view of the surrounding area without getting rained on.

By the time they get back to the car, drive to a campground to take showers (Remember it's a long drive home in close quarters. And boy did it feel great.), and leave the park it's 3pm! They had intended to leave at noon but this seems to be par for the weekend. It takes them an hour to get back to the main highway and by that time they are completely starved (for the first time this trip) and so stop at the Kountry Kitchen for a down home slightly cold meal. At 4pm they begin their 6 hour journey home, stopping only once this time for gas and for ice cream (of course) at a Kline's Dairy Bar in Augusta. With their a**es mostly asleep they finally make it back into DC around 10:30pm. Maybe they'll choose something a bit closer next time : ) .

	And no adventure is complete without a stop at a local ice cream shop.

Bonus photos!!!
Fashion on the trail