Friday, April 15th

Gravel Springs Hut (958.7 mi) to Front Royal, VA (972.1 mi)

Hiking Miles: 13.4

Total Ascent: 2,125.7 ft

Total Descent: 3,698.8 ft

Total Grade: 429.1 ft/mi

Steps: 33,092

We woke up around 8ish, since we only had 10 miles to hike to complete the Shenandoah’s, and we did have a late night the previous evening. Stevie ate two packets of instant granola, and I had oatmeal for breakfast. The oatmeal definitely needed either cinnamon or maple brown sugar to sweeten it. Our breakfast selection is so random at this point in our journey – it will likely take us (for me anyway) time to figure out a routine for all meals. We signed the book that was in the shelter, then we left the site at 9:40 am. We each packed away another Gatorade from the cooler at the end of the blue blaze to have on trail. What a special treat!

We made it to the 100-mile milestone after 6 miles of hiking and created a “100” on the ground out of twigs. With us being Flip-Flop thru hikers, there are no traditional mileage landmarks to celebrate or to photograph, so we decided (like many hikers) to create our own memory. One-hundred is a big one, marking the first of essentially 22 “one-hundred mile” segments. Having endured this distance by “Day 6” certainly provided us with a level of confidence that we were on track (our initial bar was 100 miles per week) to make a significant impact on the trail. Four miles later we exited Shenandoah National Park, which was another “feel-good” accomplishment.

We hiked 3.5 more miles (it felt long) to Rte 522 at the Front Royal trailhead. There, we met a woman and her son who were section hiking together. They originally were from Louisiana and now live in Virginia (for the past two years). She was chatty, however very pleasant. Their yellow cab came an hour late, so hopefully the time spent conversing with us helped them with having to wait and not worrying as much that their ride would show. Our cab came 4 minutes early at 5:26 pm.

We checked into a Hilton hotel and ordered 3 medium pizzas and 2 Diet Cokes from Domino’s. We also bought OJ, lemonade and laundry detergent from the hotel front desk. I called Teresa, then watched a little Chicago Fire before retiring to bed for the evening. We didn’t have plans yet for the next day, and decided to address that in the morning to see how our bodies felt.