Stormchasers

Dwarfed by giant trees.

It's been storming off and on for the past two days, but we've managed to make it about 20 more miles and miss hiking in the thick of it. Yesterday, we went about 10 miles, and we were lucky that the hiking was relatively easy, because it was blazing hot. Just existing seems hard when the heat index gets in the upper 90s. But the storm stayed away until after we made it to the pick-up spot for the day, which was a blessing. We also got to walk through an area of forest that had recently been destroyed by a huge forest fire. It was rather eerie, seeing the lush mountains in the background through the dead branches of the burned area...

Forest Fire.

If yesterday passed rather uneventfully, today made up for it. We had hiked down to below 1000 feet above sea level the day before, so today we had to go straight back up. To 3,500 feet to be exact. It was a long, steady climb that definitely kept me on my toes. And there were plenty of surprises along the way to help.

GORGEOUS shelter about 4 miles into the hike. It was 3 stories tall, had a wrap around porch and a slate roof, and was made out of whole logs and wooden pegs.

Rattlesnake Alert! I got to within about 6 inches of this one before I saw it. Sneaky little rascals. Again, this guy didn't move, so I let him have the trail. I went around him.

We were running from some serious thunder by the time we got to the summit of our climb, and made it to the next shelter just in time to duck into it before it started pouring. We waited out the worst of the thunderstorm there, with two other thru-hikers from Seattle, both about my age. When thing cleared up, we put on our ponchos and walked the last 3 miles to the road.

View from Black Rocks in the rain.

We made it safely back to camp on both days, thank goodness, despite running from storms and deadly reptiles. One of the best perks of hiking this section was that yesterday we got to make a city run to Roanoke, which is just down the road, for a little civilization and some good food. We wandered around town and I had some tastey brick oven pizza at a local place. My favorite thing about Roanoke, though, was getting to see the Virginia Tech's brand new medical school, the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and Research Institute. They just opened their doors this year, and the plastic is still on the windows of their building, but everything looks state-of-the-art and amazing. Seeing it definitely put it at the top of my list of favorite medical schools I've applied to. What a treat that such a fun city and great school is so close to the mighty AT.

Perhaps Future Dowdy, MD?