Moonrise along Va 608
M=14.9; C=585.1
A good night's sleep, a shower and early the next a.m., the 'A.T. Firefighters' caught a ride from Dr. Frog in Bastion. I headed for my maildrop in Bland. Ate breakfast at the Citgo and headed up Rt 52 to find trail. Ran into Sweet Magnolia and Bud walking up the road. D.C., High Spirits and Breeze slackpacked, managing a ride and getting dropped back to the road crossing on Little Wolf.
Sweet Mags, Bud and I wandered over I-77. Sweet Mags was going to continue north with the blazes. I stashed my pack and hiked south back to the blowdowns, cleaning up what I could off Trail as I went. Met Magoo, O.C. and Shirt along the way. Magoo was looking for D.C., so he pushed on to town. D.C. came along a while later while I was moving trees. The blowdowns have a lot of names. My favorite is WidowMaker, in that the snag catches your boot or shin, you fall on to the sharp broken limbs of a partially downed tree or debris, maybe doing enough damage to end that day's progress, or a hike altogether.
I turned around to hike north with D.C. back up to the road crossing, where we retrieved the stashed packs. After some serious miles, we caught up with Magoo. She may have come out on trail to escape the turnstyle of relationships, but it was pretty clear they shared an interest in each other.
We three hiked on to nearly dusk and found this huge open pasture with Breeze, H.S., Cloudwalker, O.C., Getoverit and Sweet Mags. Flat ground, open skies, plenty of room for everyone. Moon coming over the ridgeline. The Breeze and High Spirits pitched their tent, as did D.C. and Magoo, and CloudWalker. Getoverit and I burritoed in some cowflop-free zones near fallen trees. Beautiful night sky, crisp temps, light breeze. Very sound sleep under the moon and stars.