Do the Rockslide

Dragging myself up a steep climb.

We underestimated the difficulty of our 14 mile hike today. On a topography map, it doesn't look too bad. A gentle climb with lots of ridge hiking afterwards. But, a topography map doesn't tell you whether you'll be walking over neatly packed dirt, loosely packed rocks, or thin air. Today happened to be a day for the second of those. The first mile or so was relatively innocent, but things change quickly around here. We had a steep and rocky 4 mile climb up to a stone monolith called "Dragon's Tooth," because, well...it looks like a giant tooth. We had lunch there and enjoyed the view and the breeze.

Dragon's Tooth.

Rock Climbing.

View.

I'd like to say that we had a nice, leisurely climb down from Dragon's Tooth, but it was less nice and leisurely and more terrifying, and less climbing and more sliding. The climb was down completely sheer rock faces, and the "trail" down them was clearly designed by someone with legs twice as long as mine. I had to sit down and use my hands in lots of places. I have a serious aversion to the idea of breaking an ankle or falling off a cliff, so I crawled at a snail's pace down those rocks. I did get down though, eventually. In hindsight, it was pretty fun.

Trying to decide how to navigate down the rocks...

...There were even metal steps in the rock faces...

...which took every ounce of whatever grace of movement I have not to fall off of.

Then it started to rain...crawling over those same slick rocks in the rain is not so much fun...

Sliding up the rocks in the rain.

...but it only rained for an hour or so, just long enough to make me put on my rain gear. I really have to find a better way to stay dry. Hiking in my rain gear is like working out wearing plastic bags. I realize celebrities pay thousands of dollars to have someone make them sweat that much, but that's not what I'm going for here. Rain or no rain, it took us almost 9 hours to make it 14 miles, much slower than our pace of late, but there was some hard hiking to be done. We had some good hearty food at a restaurant in Blacksburg, namely a baked potato loaded with chili, cheese, onions, jalapenos, salsa and sour cream for me. I know I'm going to be sore tomorrow from scrambling around those rocks, but with food like that in my stomach, I can't complain...

...or when the views are this good.

Mileage Update:

Miles from Springer: 699