Day 69
Location: Curry Creek, VA
Miles hiked today: 8.5
Miles from Springer: 725.3
Miles to Katahdin: 1,450.9
Elevation: 1,680′
As I have mentioned before, it is hard to leave town. Last night I crashed in 2 Mile and Weatherman’s hotel room for about 10 bucks. It was nice to sleep in a place that was clean, even though I was still on the floor. When I woke up this morning they were gone, as they had a ride at 8 am to slackpack the previous section. (Slackpacking means that you get a shuttle for a section, which means you don’t have to take your backpack. This allows you to go a lot farther, even though you don’t have the option to stop for the night if you needed to.) I tried to make the most of having a hotel room to myself, and took yet another shower and watched The Colbert Report on tv. Then I headed for Bojangles for some grub. I managed to stay most of the day in one shopping center, as I had lots of journal entries to write, and I got a haircut. The lady cutting my hair was trying to do a really good job, and took almost 40 minutes. All I really cared about was shorter hair so it wouldn’t be as hot. She offered to trim my beard, but I told her I was waiting to see how big it will grow out to. She gave me that ‘it’s your face’ look, but my guess is that if it were up to her she would have trimmed the beard.
By the time I was ready to leave town, it was almost dinner time so I decided to grab a southern bbq sandwich before heading out. The temperature was about 95 degrees again today, so I wanted to wait until it cooled down. I still wanted to make some decent miles today, as I want to make Waynesboro by the end of the week.
When I got to Fullhardt Knob Shelter, I noticed that it has a new type of water source. It is supposed to collect water in a cistern system, from water runoff off of the roof. However, the cistern was dry, presumably because the roof of the shelter has wood shingles and would absorb most of the water that could have been collected. Pretty neat concept, though.
I decided to push on from the shelter, even though it was getting dark. Part of my plan for making some good miles in this heat was to night hike with my headlamp. The headlamp I am carrying, however, is not up to the task, as I found out tonight. It is super small and light, but runs on watch batteries and is not very bright at all. It works great as a light in the tent at night, but as I found out, it should not be used for hiking. There was no or at least very little moon, and as it got darker and darker, I started tripping quite a bit, and it was a little dangerous.
Finally I found a campsite, already occupied by a tent. I could tell the person was up, so I asked if he minded if I pitched my tent there. His name is Terry 7, and seemed like a pretty nice guy. Nothing much more exciting happened other than falling immediately to sleep. I had a jolt when there was a loud crash just outside of my tent, but it turns out it was just my hiking pole falling over.
Walken' 
I wasn’t aware of a shelter in VA which bore my last name. You learn something new every day. Thanks for posting the article.