Kevin's AT Thru Hike

Day 72, Friday, 5/27 – I packed up camp and headed out with Half Time. We were on the trail around 8:15am. We had a bit over 3 miles to hike in the morning to get to a wayside. A wayside is a general store in the park with food resupply. It started raining pretty hard on our way.

We ran into Genie, Splitzy, and Birthday Sandwich, and we all hiked into the wayside. The wayside was much nicer than we all expected. I’m assuming that the Shenandoah’s get more funding as its a National Park. We all got lunch and hung out for a while. Beastie and Sole came rolling through which was exciting! I don’t think I’ve seen them since the Station at 19E, which would have been over a month ago.

The rain died down, so we left after a few hours. We hiked as a group all afternoon, and took some photos together at the 900 mile marker.

It was forecasted to rain all day, but fortunately the rain held off most of the afternoon. We even got some great views along the way.

We were about at the end of the hike today when we heard thunder. It was clear that a good size storm was rolling through. I was racing up the hill, but could tell I wasn’t going to be set up before the rain really hit hard. Genie, Splitzy, and Birthday Sandwich all ended up staying at the shelter. I pushed a bit further to get to the top of the mountain.

Once I got to the top of Hightop Mountain (19 miles to mile 907), it really started pouring. I set up my tarp and hunkered down. Half Time came running in from the rain and took shelter under the tarp too. We ate dinner and hoped that the rain would stop. The whole reason we pushed to the top is because we heard that the best sunset was at this peak. We got lucky. The rain stopped just in time and we got a nice sunset. Dogfish was there too and enjoyed the views with us. It started raining again shortly after dark.