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Day 61: May 21, 2021 (18.7 miles)

Niday Shelter - 4 Pines Hostel


Today was a great day! It was so nice to start the morning hiking with Creature again. I slept really poorly and was woken up early by this grumpy old man in the shelter… but so was everyone else so I got to eat breakfast with everyone. We got moving and were pleasantly surprised by a cooler of trail magic in the parking lot before the day’s big climb. We threw away our trash and packet out a soda for a summit celebration.

Trail magic can be as simple and wonderful as a cooler of drinks and a trash can

The climb took a while but we were thrilled to find a bench at the top to sit and drink our sodas. We cruised on the ridgeline after checking out a random WWII memorial and descended to a nice creek for lunch. We made new friends with a couple named Sticks and Slobber and had a nice long lunch.

700 miles with Creature and Dumb Horse!

Afterward, we started climbing up to Dragons Tooth. The climb got really rocky and technical it was steep but fun. We caught up to Dumb Horse and DQ all got to Dragons Tooth together. I was surprised and impressed by how cool Dragons Tooth was! We climbed on it and took a ton of pictures.

Dragons Tooth! The first of the Virginia Triple Crown

The descent down was only a couple of miles but was the most technical section of trail yet. thankfully we were rewarded with a hitch to the has station for burgers and slushies before getting a hitch from trail angel Gray Dog to 4 Pines Hostel. We tented, drank beer and played a lot of corn hole. Today was a super fun and rewarding day.

Sad my ice cream sandwich melted while I was eating my burger

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