Day 2 - Learning Curve

Day 2 did not go as planned, and that is ok!

Spoiler Alert

We stayed in a hotel our second night 😳 ... read more to know why.

Splendid Morning

The view from our campsite was amazing. I had some hot tea, some Belvita crackers, and a Carnation instant breakfast. We got a game plan together, and decided we would make for the Paul Wolfe Shelter, which would be about a 14 mile day. We took off feeling great.

About 30 min later, we stopped to filter water. After breakfast, and drinking a bit to get ourselves going We just needed another couple of years. This took us about 20 minutes, then we are on our way again.

Climbs

We had a few pretty rough climbs, and by the time we reached the shelter about 5pm we were pretty tired. We had drank about 4-5 liters of water, and were still parched. We filtered some water with our SLLLOOOOWW Sawyer Water filter. While we were filtering we debating going to a nearby town called Waynesboro. We had heard Waynesboro was a great town and really wanted to check it out. 

Also, there was a camping outfitting store there that was pretty awesome, and we decided maybe we should get a second water filter in case this one fails and maybe we could filter water twice as fast with two of them.

I called the store the guy said he could hang out till about 7:00. I could have waited until the morning, but they wouldn't have opened until 10:00 or so, and I was itching to get this problem solved.

Also we had burned through our cell phone batteries through just plain-old-overuse. We had heard we could charge our phones at a spot there in town by the trail. Also we thought we could pick up a couple more snacks for our bags. 

It was just under 5 mi and we thought we could probably knock that out. So we loaded up our packs and headed that way. Our plan was to try to find a hostel to stay in, or to find a place to camp. 

Rockfish Gap

For some reason when I heard the word "Gap" I thought oh we must be going downhill. I probably should have checked the profile map. It was a ton of uphill on very tired legs. By the time we got to Rockfish Gap it was about 7:30, and we were just spent. 

Down the mountain I had been texting for a shuttle. We finally found one, and waited for him in the little parking lot. Our driver was named "Rumble",  and might have been the nicest and coolest person I've met in a long time. 

We headed Rockfish Gap Outfitters. The person who helped us there was absolutely awesome. He  got us our stuff and out of their quick.

We discussed where we wanted to stay, and ooted for a hotel. We are beat,and didn't feel like dealing with a hostel or trying to hunt down a campsite - although Rumble offered to help with both 😊.

Since I had points on hotels.com, our room was free. We got to charge our phones, feed our bellys, drink lots of water, and sleep solidly. 

Tomorrow we should be in the Shenandoah National Park 👍👍🎄🌲🐿️🐿️