.November 12, 2006 - Hike #1
I mentioned yesterday that I finally connected all my completed Virginia sections so far. Well, that didn't last long. It looks like I while be jumping around the next week to accomodate my sore knee. There was no way I could complete the 22 mile section that I had planned for today which also included a rocky climb up Dragon's Tooth. So for today I decided to do two hikes. The next section I had planned to do was 11 miles. I'll do that section later today, but first I will do a 6 mile hike to shorten the Dragon's Tooth hike which I will do later in the week.
I got an early start on the trail today, 6:30. The sun was just starting to come up. There are some great feautres on the AT before and after this tiny 5.9 mile section of trail, but this piece itself didn't really have anything to interesting.
There was a major shift in the weather overnight. The last two days set record high temperatures in Roanoke. Today was cold and windy. It was supposed to rain, but it looks like I might luck out there. The trail heads up over a ridge. Boy, was the wind howling up there. With the leaves blowing around everywhere I could actually see a stone staircase. I've been hiking for nearly week and this was the first stone staircase that wasn't covered with leaves.
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~ ~ After walking along the ridge for a couple of miles, the trail drops down into a valley for a while.
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I took extra caution going over this stile since the fence next to it was electric.
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This smooth, grassy trail didn't bother my knee a bit.
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The trail went back into the woods after this before coming out at VA 624 where I met Lynn. This was my warm-up hike. Now onto the eleven mile hike.
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