Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Did I pick the wrong route?

So far, Shenandoah is beautiful, but brutal. I'm not convinced yet that the beauty outweighs the brutality.

Tuesday, 4 November (election day!): I made it to Shenandoah National Park with almost no rain, which was great, since it had been predicted with a fairly high probability. I saw evidence of brief sprinkling, but I missed most of it. When I got into the park, I climbed 1300 feet in five miles. Blurg. Not so fun toward the end of the day. I was planning to stealth camp, but I chickened out, and there weren't a lot of good places anyhow. I stopped at the visitor center and got a backcountry permit and directions to the nearest place where that sort of thing is allowed. I got there shortly before dark, scarfed a bunch of food, tied the rest of my food up, and pitched my tent in the dark just as the rain was starting in for serious. Now I am safely ensconced within my tent, too exhausted to even bother with the handi-wipe bath...

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Did I forget to tell you about the southern Appalachians? sorry bout that. stay safe and watch out for blue ridge porcupines, they are tough on tires.

Anonymous said...

cheri this is your cousin Cari from colorado,how are you found your blog wow sound fun email me cjmoselina@aol.com,tell jeremy to email me too.

Cheri said...

I had been warned about the mountains of Virginia more than once, but still decided to go all masochist.

And then I quit.

(Jeremy, did you read the above message?)