Training Trip - SNP 5/23 - 5/24

imported
#1

Well, there is no better way to train, then train in the rain. I will be testing out my rain-gear and tech skills this Friday night / Saturday in Shenandoah National Park. {SNP} It is supposed to rain, and rain, and rain.

I’m posting for 4 reasons:

  1. Anybody planning to start a through-hike April 2004 wanna come? I’ll be doing the Central or North SNP. Leaving from NOVA.

  2. If anyone has anything they would like me to POSSIBLY give to a through hiker in the area, let me know. I’m very flexible.

  3. Anyone in contact with a through hiker that needs a lift to the DC area from SNP, drop a line. I can fit 2 bodies and 2 more packs {Aside from my own} in my hatchback. If they need transport in the general Shenandoah Area, no problem. I was born in Front Royal and know the area quite well.

  4. I’ve planned to carry 3 dozen choco-chip cookies and a batch of MooCookies {Google for Ultra-light Joe} and off-load them to any through hikers I can spot. Any one have any other suggestions on what to feed the cold, wet and hungery hikers?

That’s about it. Thanks for your input

Utt

#2

You are bringing enough cookies for one hiker!!! Just kidding. The SNP was a vacation hike for us. We got food at the different tourist stops along the way. We hiked the SNP in five days and got food at the stops at least once a day and most of the time twice. I want ever forget the blackberry milkshake at the Meadows. Awesome! You should’nt see a lot of hikers in the SNP this time of year. At Trail Days most of the people we met on this years hike were south of Pearisburg, VA. Try again in a month and you should see lots of hungry hikers.

Papa Smurf

#3

You may not be swarmed with hikers, but the group I hiked with last year, about 2 dozen of us, left the SNP to go to trail days. So you should see a fair number of thrus!

Grassy Ridge

#4

There will be some thruhikers, but not as many as there will be in two or three weeks. As others have said, there are a lot of stores and restaurants in the park, so you won’t get a lot of appreciation for goodies, though I have found that ‘real food’ – stuff that hikers don’t carry normally, still goes over well, even when there are stores: fruit and fruit juice, salads, meat, beer, soda, etc. I ran into picnickers who offered to share their picnic a couple of times, and that was much appreciated by me. After our wedding we took the extra food to SNP and shared it with thruhikers - the ham, potato salad and fruit salad went over quite well, though we had a hard time finding anyone out hiking that rainy Memorial Day. We stopped doing deliberate trail magic after being told that “we’ve seen so much trail magic, it really isn’t all that special any more.”

Spirit Walker

#5

Good points everyone. The ENTIRE point of the trip isn’t to drop off cookies’ but I figure if I’m around anyway…

I’ve done SNP many times and the facilites are wonderful for de-shocking the system… but I get tired of paying out the nose for stuff. Call me cheap! {But yah, the blackberry shakes are to die for at any cost.}

Utt

#6

PS: Gee, nobody seems to WANT to hike in the rain! :lol

Utt

#7

Gee Spirit Walker,
That’s really sad. Especially since from my position last year in the “back of the pack” I rarely had ANY trail magic, everyone had forgotten about us by then :frowning:

Can you believe I went the whole way without someone once offering me a beer? We found a few coolers, but they were usually old and empty. :bawling

I wasn’t up in the Shennies until mid-July. No one thought we’d have time to “make it” - ha!

Bluebearee

#8

I didn’t get many beer offers, but I did have a beer find, in Bear Mountain State Park, I set my pack down to get out some water, looked down and there was a bottle of Guinness, on the ground right next to my pack. It was warm, but it still tasted good!

It’s funny, we had a lot of food-related trail magic on the AT - but one guy who was hiking around us had none. I think the difference was that he was quite shy and would slip quietly through a group of people at a picnic area, and didn’t usually stay at shelters (so no weekenders trying to drop pack weight by giving out extra food), where I was hiking with some very outgoing folks who “never met a stranger” and would just start talking to people at campgrounds and picnic areas, who would end up offering goodies. It makes a difference. So does pure luck. The organized trail magic – the big feeds – were always a day or two ahead or behind me, but I tended to run into very nice folks who would offer fruit or cookies just because we looked hungry.

Spirit Walker