Chapter Seven: Mt. Rodgers, Grayson Highlands and Exploding Fish Oil

Day 45 July 29, 2020 Wednesday

Chatfield Shelter, VA to VA 42 (Bear Garden Hostel), VA

My alarm went off at 5:45, but I kept hitting the snooze until about 6 AM. I began my morning ritual of packing up and organizing everything inside my tent. When it was time take my morning vitamins and fish oil capsule, I noticed there was no more water left in my water bottle. Rather than choking down the dry pills, I put the vitamins and fish oil in my left pants pocket. When I eventually walked over to the picnic table, I reached in to retrieve the vitamins, and found the fish oil had exploded saturating the whole front of my shorts and left leg. Just what I needed, smelling like a fish and attracting more flies, gnats, and bears! This was not the best way to start my day.

Around mid morning I crossed over the great Pulaski fault system, a northeast-trending thrust fault that extends from North Carolina into central Virginia roughly along the eastern edge of the Shenandoah Valley for several hundred miles. I was now in the Cambro-Ordovician carbonate rocks of the Shenandoah Valley near the I-81 underpass and was enjoying a slice of pizza from a local convenience store. Soon another hiker strolled over from the southwest and we both chatted for a while. Spokes was out for several days and planning to do about 20 miles each day—a rather aggressive schedule, I remember thinking at the time. He said he was hiking to Knot Maul Shelter for the night, and I responded that I doubted I would make it that far. He was in a hurry, so we said our goodbyes and parted. I returned inside to buy supplies for the next few days as well as two more slices of pizza and a large Mountain Dew.

Following my break, I continued following the white blazes under I-81 and across several fields and small hills. Eventually I reached an opening in the woods where the trail became less gentle and finally started gaining elevation upon reaching the Devonian Chemung. These rocks were nowhere as tough as the Silurian orthoquartzites I would experience on nearby Walker Mountain later that day. By early afternoon, I was on my way up and over the smaller Devonian peaks that eventually led up to Little Brushy Mountain. It was a gorgeous summer day, and the sun was heating up the air and rocks along the trail. About 2/3 of the way down the mountain, I encountered a very calm, but quite hefty, five-foot Timber Rattler right along the left side of the trail. I stopped dead in my tracks and waited for a few seconds while the snake remained totally still. This was certainly not something I would want to step on, and I waited a few seconds more! The good thing about these snakes is that they are so big, you really can’t miss them. All day long, I would be looking down at the trail directly in front of me, and something this size would be really hard not to see. I gave him a wide berth; walking well off the trail and around him; watching him all the while as he slowly slithered away into the high weeds. I wondered if he could smell that nasty fish oil on my left pant leg?

When I made it to the bottom of the mountain, I stopped at the Crawfish Valley Campground, and for the second time today, attempted to wash out the fish oil smell from my hiking shorts. I even tried using some of my biodegradable liquid soap—something I rarely opened in my five months on the trail. It seemed like the more I worked, the oilier my hands and everything that I touched became—including my trekking-pole handles and my water bottles. Also, I would learn later that this campground was where that dreadful AT machete murder happened last year…