Saturday, June 18th

Old Orchard Shelter (510.2 mi) to Marion, VA (534.3 mi).

Hiking Miles: 24.1

Total Ascent: 4,277.2 ft

Total Descent: 5,073.8 ft

Total Grade: 389.5 ft/mi

Steps: 55,826

I left the shelter at 5:25 am. I think for the first time, I felt like I wanted to sleep in this morning, but my future self thanked me later for getting up. I made a video during my morning hike first wishing Christina a “Happy Birthday”, then a small clip about Charlotte’s comments from the night before regarding Stevie being a “little chatterbox” – HaHa.

But I also want to emphasize that I love days like today, both Stevie and I do. The temperature was ideal, 63 degrees and very low humidity. And to make it better, the hike was mostly downhill, not steep but a pleasant gradual decline. The sites were unique and quite scenic during mid-morning and I was so enthralled with its beauty that I accidentally went off trail for a short time, but thankfully not losing much time.

Stevie caught up with me at the 13.5 mile mark right at noontime, and we celebrated being “half-way” on the AT. There was one point just before we met up that I thought that Stevie perhaps had passed me. That’s when I took a wrong turn off-trail late in the morning near Dewy Gap. Shortly after that I had stopped at the overall 1097.2 mile mark to wait for him, but I still wasn’t quite sure of his location. I knew he wouldn’t pass it anyway without me, and soon he came hiking around the bend and we celebrated together. We formed a “1097” with rocks we found on the path. Harrison later saw it when he passed by it, and he gave us a fist pump and congratulations when he physically caught up with us.

That afternoon, the toes on my left foot started to hurt and I felt blisters coming on from having wet shoes, and also from rubbing. At the end of our day’s hike, we met a guy by the trail name “Gun Runner” who had thru-hiked the AT in 2012. He evidently returned to parts of the AT to relive his remarkable experience. He had stopped at the Partnership Shelter, a 2-story structure that could hold 12 people, for the night. He adopted his trail name when he hiked the trail in 2012 after another hiker left his gun behind at a shelter. So “Gun Runner” ran him down to return it to him (hence the term). Interesting character. 

Harrison & Smiles hadn’t shown up yet and we asked Gun Runner if he would let them know that we had a slight change in plans. We decided to shuttle into the town of Marion, which meant we weren’t staying and ordering pizza as originally planned.

While at the Partnership Visitor Center, Harrison caught up with us. We explained to him we were going into town to thoroughly rest and to grab some breakfast food to celebrate Father’s Day the next morning. We called a shuttle driver and she sent her husband to pick us up. He was a bit strange, and he spoke so softly that we couldn’t hear him. He dropped us off at the Traveller’s Inn where we stayed for the night. We asked him if he would pick us up in the morning at 7:30 am and he said “NO” and that was too early for him. He wouldn’t commit to a time, nor even to be available since it was Sunday and church was in session.

We resupplied at Ingles supermarket, then walked across the main street (with my annoying flip flops) and bought a bunch of McDonald’s food for dinner (Big Mac, Double 1/4-pounder, Fillet of Fish, Vanilla shake, fries, coke and a McFlurry). We had also bought six doughnuts and a jug of ice coffee @ Ingles for our Father’s Day breakfast the next day.

This stop was well needed in order to rest and repair my blisters and open wounds on the toes of my left foot, and chilling in the motel room that looked like the scene from “A Walk In The Woods”.

That evening back at the shelter, Harrison earned his new trail name “Double Trouble” when he singlehandedly ate two 16-inch pizzas (one meat lovers and one buffalo chicken) to satisfy his hiker hunger. However not long after, he found himself getting sick behind the shelter, and finding himself in “Double Trouble”.

But the biggest highlight of the day was what we called the “Trifecta”: It was 1) Day 60, 2) Christina’s Birthday, and 3) the day we reached the halfway point on the trail – 1097.2 miles!