5/8-5/14: Woods Hole Hostel -> Daleville, VA

Southern Virginia also included one of the most anticipated sections of trail in the Virginia Triple Crown, and possibly the most iconic point on the whole AT in McAfee Knob. But from Woods Hole, I still had a lot of ground to cover to get there!

I left Woods Hole hostel on Monday morning, after waking up to watch the sunrise and enjoying a huge, delicious breakfast with my new friends, the newlyweds, and the Woods Hole crew. Oatmeal gamechanger: raisins, coconut flakes, yogurt, and maple syrup! I was very excited to discover this combination while throwing together random toppings.

Hiking out at about 9:30, I felt so rejuvenated and happy after the day before. However, I also had a bittersweet feeling of wabi-sabi. Wabi-sabi is a Japanese term roughly meaning “the beauty of impermanence.” It’s actually something that applies to a lot of things on the trail, such as a view that you’ll leave behind or meeting someone cool in passing, but I felt it especially strongly then, coming off such a wonderful experience at the wedding. I was also wondering if I would ever see the friends I had met, and so enjoyed being around, again, or for how long. With everyone going at different paces, there’s never any guarantee that you’ll run into someone again. Even if I didn’t, I was glad to have met them and shared such a magical day with them all.

It was a short day of hiking down into Pearisburg, VA, but a surprisingly tough one, with a rocky ridgeline with plenty of loose boulders (ugh) and a very steep final descent into town. At least there were plenty of nice views along the way.

My knees were hurting quite a bit after that day. I felt rather frustrated with my body, after I felt like this section had gone so well, and as I wasn’t carrying much food heading into town, and as I had just had almost a full day off! I hoped that the relatively easy section of the past few days hadn’t lulled me into a false sense of security (more on that later). But I also knew that I was probably hiking too quickly that day, as I wanted to get to the post office before it closed (which I did, and picked up my last mail drop).

When I did reach town, I was delighted to find a full spread of trail magic from a 2021 thru-hiker, Giggles! It had been a long time since I had come across something like that. There was a lot of trail magic in store in Pearisburg, in fact: soon after, a whole carload of hikers, including myself, got a ride into town from another hiker named Pringles, and later myself and a few friends got a random ride to the restaurant we were getting dinner at so we didn’t have to walk.

I got dinner at a Mexican place, with most of my new friends from Woods Hole! Yep, I saw them again, not 12 hours later. I truly was so glad to see them, though. I also met new friends Radish (a different Radish) and Happy Hour, and we all had an absolutely raucous dinner together. It was a great time.

That night, I stayed at Angel’s Rest hostel in Pearisburg. I felt like I was doing some “platinum blazing” by staying in two different hostels on consecutive nights! Angel’s Rest was nice enough, and felt sorta run-of-the-mill as far as AT hostels go. I knew the night couldn’t possibly compare to my previous hostel experience at Woods Hole, but I was still a little sad about it, even though I had a perfectly pleasant time.

On the first day out of Pearisburg, we traversed a grassy ridge that was right on the West Virginia border! I wasn’t expecting that, so it was cool, even though we didn’t officially enter the state. I was listening to music at the time, and Country Roads came on; it was very serendipitous.

That afternoon, I saw wild goats on trail! I had been warned about them, since apparently they can be quite aggressive and have interfered with other hikers. In fact, I later learned that someone had come to take them off the mountainside the very next day, so I saw them at the perfect time. The goats were pretty, and a special thing to see. It was funny and a little scary when they started chasing me up the trail! My bad for taking out a granola bar (not even unwrapped) too close to them.

By the end of that day, I had hiked more miles solo than with a hiking partner :’) That was a bittersweet thought. I miss Sophie a lot, but it was nice to realize that I’ve come so far and I’m still surviving, even thriving, on my own.

The next morning was the privy incident (dun dun dun…). I had stopped at a shelter for second breakfast and to use the privy; my trail friend Burnie and a couple of flip-floppers were there, and I was last in line. The privy had one of those spinny latch things to keep the door shut when no one was using it. I went to do my business, and when I got up to leave, I found that I was trapped inside! Somehow, the latch on the outside had spun shut and locked me inside. It was a nightmare! The worst place to be. I couldn’t get my fingers through the crack to twist the latch. I called for help, but I could see through a hole in the wall that Burnie and the others were already gone. I was alone, and trapped in a privy. “Who designed this??” I was thinking. I ended up having to kick down the door to escape! The latch broke off pretty easily (the door itself was fine). All told, I was only trapped for a few minutes, thank goodness. That was by far the funniest thing to happen to me on trail.

That day was long and hard, with steep ups and downs and rocky terrain in between. It was my second true 20 mile day, and much harder than the first one. I was attempting to push bigger mileage in this leg. One reason for this, and not a very good one, was that I wanted to try to keep up/catch up with my new friends, who are quite fast. I did not hike my own hike that day, and I was disappointed in myself for that. It was still a beautiful day and a beautiful section of trail, though, and I was able to appreciate it.

I continued to push big miles in the following days, but my motivations were much better, and I felt like I was truly doing it for myself. The next day, I enjoyed hiking with Burnie for quite a while in the morning, and forded another creek in the afternoon. I caught a beautiful sunset from my campsite that night. I hoped to see another beautiful sunset, and/or sunrise, from McAfee Knob, and crossed my fingers for one more day and night of good weather. I was excited to tackle the beginning of the Virginia Triple Crown the next day!

The Virginia Triple Crown is three unique peaks within a relatively small area in southern VA: Dragon’s Tooth, McAfee Knob, and Tinker Cliffs. McAfee Knob in particular is a truly iconic spot on trail, possibly the most iconic of them all, and is supposedly the “most photographed” place on the AT (although I always raise an eyebrow at that particular metric). With a name like the Virginia Triple Crown, this section was naturally pretty hyped up, and I was looking forward to it.

The Triple Crown began with Dragon’s Tooth. When I finally saw the Tooth, I was absolutely blown away. The spectacular rock formations came out of nowhere. It was SO COOL, one of the coolest spots on trail! I enjoyed scrambling around the rocks and chatting with a nice section hiker, Michelle.

The descent down from Dragon’s Tooth was very steep and technical, with lots of rock scrambles. Usually, that’s the sort of thing I live for, but it was very tough with my big heavy pack. But besides this stretch, I found the rest of the Triple Crown section to be surprisingly easy.

I passed through pastures and saw more cows! This time they were right on the trail, and got very close. There were some truly huge ones, and also several calves! Adorable.

Then, who should I run into but Scoops! It was a fun surprise to see her; she had spent a day off trail with a friend so I had been briefly ahead of her. No sooner had we met up than the skies opened up above us and we got totally drenched. It was my first time getting caught in a real thunderstorm on trail. Luckily it was just a brief cloudburst: definitely my favorite kind of rain! It was exhilarating. I was glad to be hiking with Scoops for that, and I was actually able to keep up with her for a bit. But soon I did the responsible thing and slowed myself down and let her get ahead.

At around 5pm, I decided to push up to McAfee Knob for sunset, since the weather looked better for that evening. than for the morning. I have never felt more motivated on trail! I felt like I was flying up the mountain, and it felt pretty good! I met back up with Scoops at the last shelter before the summit and we climbed the last 2 miles together.

It was so exciting to make it to McAfee Knob! After seeing so many pictures of the famous view, it was cool to see it in person and stand there ourselves. The sense of scale of the knob was smaller than it seems in the pictures, and it’s true what they say: it’s not as scary or dangerous as it looks!

There were far fewer people up there than I expected, which I was happy about. Scoops and I shared the space with Michelle who I had met earlier, her son, his friend, and one other hiker – that was all! We cooked dinner up there and sat for hours. Unfortunately, clouds had rolled in and it was too overcast for a good sunset, but that didn’t matter. The views were still good, and I was really glad to be there. I was so happy to share it with Scoops; it was a really nice bonding experience.

After the sun was gone, Scoops and I night hiked half a mile down to a large campsite, where we met a big group of friendly section hikers from Virginia Tech. Their energy was really refreshing to see and be around. Sometimes I miss that from thru-hikers; we’re always so tired at the end of the day. They gave us s’mores! First time having s’mores on trail. It put a nice cap on an awesome evening and what had become one of my favorite days on trail.

We wrapped up the Triple Crown in the morning with Tinker Cliffs! Once again, we lucked out with weather, and I spent a nice, relaxing break up there with Scoops.

The rest of the day was essentially a long descent into Daleville. At this point, my increased mileage had really taken its toll: my knees hurt, and I felt absolutely exhausted. I never needed a break more. I was excited to be in town, and promised myself I would not push myself as hard in the next section. But in the meantime, I wasn’t even sure I had a place to stay. I had only decided to head into town for that night that morning, and many options were booked. Then, I thought I at least had a tenting reservation at a hostel, but I would have to catch a shuttle at 6:15 and that wouldn’t leave me enough time to get dinner…it all made me feel stressed and kinda sad. Reaching the road in Daleville didn’t help, as it was an awful, dangerous crossing of a US highway without even a sidewalk! It was such a bummer to find myself in the midst of car-centric crap again.

I was much relieved to meet up with Scoops, Bagel, Vango, and Reese’s Cup at a BBQ place for dinner, and they even invited me to crash in their hotel room. Phew! I was much more relaxed after that, and it was so good to be with good friends.

I was glad to have caught up with them, but I knew I couldn’t sustain this mileage. It was nice to spend one more evening hanging out with them all. All in all, it was a strange emotional rollercoaster of a day, to be sure. The AT has lows, the AT has highs.

On the whole, the Virginia Triple Crown was spectacular, somehow exceeding my expectations. My verdict: Dragon’s Tooth was the best feature in itself, Tinker Cliffs had the best views, and McAfee Knob was the most meaningful experience. I loved the Triple Crown section, and had such a great time within this state that continues to impress with its beauty.