June 16 (Day 50) 

I tried to sleep in this morning, but I still couldn’t stay in my sleeping bag past 6 a.m. So, I got up and packed up and hiked the 3 miles out to the road where I would meet my sister and her fiancé.  

Amazingly enough, they showed up almost exactly when they said they would, which was 10 o’clock. They had their dog, Preston, with them also.  

Amelia had brought me three days of food, so I packed that up while they got ready to hike. Our plan was to do about 10 miles.  

We hiked 6 miles and stopped for lunch near a road crossing. We had turkey sandwiches, and I realized that I have not eaten turkey since I started the trail, which is strange because a turkey sandwich is one of the most common things I eat for lunch normally. 

After a decent break we hiked the remaining 4 miles to the shelter, which turned out to be one of the largest shelters on the AT. It slept twenty people, had three levels, and even had windows.   

The dinner we made that evening was the most elaborate dinner I’ve eaten while on the trail so far. We had burritos with all the ingredients of beans, Spanish rice, cheddar cheese, lettuce, onion, green pepper, sour cream, corn, and salsa. A really excellent dinner and some excellent cookies for dessert.  

We slept in the shelter and had the inevitable interruption of a group of people showing up in the dark, but other than that it was an excellent day.   

June 17 (Day 51)  

An excellent breakfast this morning, provided by Amelia and Boz. They brought in eggs, and we tried for omelets, but they didn’t really turn out well, so we just had scrambled eggs and blueberry muffins.  

It was disappointing to leave them this morning, but they had to hike the 10 miles back to their car, and I had to continue on.  

It was a 3,000-foot climb for me to start, but, as most of the climbs have been in Virginia, it was pretty well graded. Hopefully that will continue.  

There were a lot of deer as usual, and I think today was the first day in a while that the sun has been visible from sunrise to sunset. I think it was also the hottest day I’ve hiked in since Georgia.  

I finished my hike today at the Matts Creek Shelter, which is just a mile or so from where the AT crosses the James River. The elevation here is well under 1,000 feet, and it may be the lowest elevation so far on the trail.  

There is a group of younger teenagers on some sort of organized camping trip set up near this shelter, and there are two guys who walked in here (to camp, I assume) carrying just a duffle bag. We shall see.   

June 18 (Day 52) 

Dr. Sal showed up at the shelter and was the only other person there, aside from the Boy Scout group that was camping a little ways off last night. I’ve met Dr. Sal once before, and I didn’t think I was going to see him again because he hikes 25 to 30 miles a day. However, he said he also takes one or two days off every week.  

I crossed the James River this morning on the longest footbridge on the AT and then started climbing, as usual. Today’s climb seemed much more difficult than yesterday’s. I also think it was even hotter today. I certainly spent more time filtering water to drink that I have any other day on the trail. I’ve had at least two gallons of water so far today, and I’ll probably need more before the evening is over. Today would have been an excellent day for some Trail Magic, but such was not my luck.  

If the elevation profile on my map is anything to go by, then the climb tomorrow morning will be a bit worse even than the one today. But, the map has been misleading before, so I’m hoping for the best.