McAfee Hikes

Date Written: 11/03/2024 | AT Mile 1552.9 | Day Total: 12.5 miles | Gain: 2661 ft

Took a leap of faith off the top bunk this morning. Relaxing start otherwise. We cooked some breakfast, filtered water, and dad made some coffee. He’s starting to get the hang of the press.

We were hiking out of the shelter a few minutes before 8 AM. We’ve got another large carry today. The next water won’t be until a spring about a half mile before the shelter tonight. The comments under the spring say it’s flowing but extremely slowly. There’s a more reliable water source .6 miles after the shelter, but we don’t wanna backtrack 1.2 miles for water tonight.

It’s a cooler morning, the low last night was 36 degrees. Similar to yesterday morning, we have a big climb right out of the bat. The morning climbs are nice because it gets your blood flowing right away warming you up.

The climb was very gradual and it was easy for the three of us to keep a constant pace going. Lots of switchbacks the closer we got to the top.

Most of the leaves have fallen off the trees along the ridge and higher elevation. It’s fascinating to see them slowly fade away as you’re hiking up.

We took a quick break at a trail intersection near the top. Mom snapped a quick picture of dad and I next to the sign. It’s nice to have other pictures of myself other than selfies with the same expression on my face.

It was really windy along the top. I ended up throwing another layer back on because the wind was sucking the warmth out of me. We did manage to find a spot on the trail with less wind to take a quick snack break.

A mile or two later along the ridge we found a large rock to eat lunch at.

The shelters a few miles further along the ridge just before the descent into Pearisburg. This section turned out to be pretty neat. There were some grassy fields, one of which was called Wills Field. The views from here were amazing!

There was a massive pile of bear skat in the middle of the trail here. This pile of skat was the biggest both my dad and I have ever seen. Shortly after there was a “bear nest” with claw marks in it presumably where a bear spent the night.

A few hours later we made it to the spring. Like the comment said it was flowing but not much at all. After some trial and error I developed a system I’m going to call potato engineering. I used the empty bag from my instant potatoes as a funnel for the water. I could have used a leaf but all the leaves have fallen and are very crumbly. We probably spent a good 30 min collecting water for tonight.

While dad and I gathered water mom took a short break and continued hiking toward the shelter. Dad and I followed shortly after once we finished filtering all the water. It was a pretty cool 1.5 miles to the shelter. We passed by a good view from some power lines, followed by a cell tower and a beautiful bald where the shelter was.

It’s still pretty windy up here but the shelter view doesn’t get much better than this. After settling in we walked back over to the bald and enjoyed the view while it was still light outside. It got pretty chilly after a few minutes and we went back to the shelter. Luckily the winds blowing into the back of the shelter and not the front.

We cooked some dinner, talked and snapped a few pictures of the sunset. There’s a bear box conveniently here so we won’t have to worry about hanging food which is always a plus.

Last night with mom and dad. I’ve loved being able to spend the past few nights with them! It’s comforting having your parents nearby.