May 5th: Passing the 200 mile mark!

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Wind blew last night and kept us cool. Stayed in the shelter and not the tent. We passed a youth group while climbing the Priest yesterday and they took up all the tenting spots. It was just one guy "Quatro", CC and I so there was plenty of room. Left the shelter at 9AM as we had planned a short miles day.
We dropped down the south side of The Priest to VA826 over a knob to Cash Hollow Rd then over Main Top Mountain just over 4,000'. Down past the Fish Hatchery Rd that runs into Montebello and the trail famous "Dutch Haus." If you walk the mile down the mountain before 11:30AM, you get a free big lunch. A ploy to get you to stay the night, pay for a bed, dinner and the breakfast. We had miles to do and are not to the "eat anything that moves state" yet. Then passed through Porters Field, over a couple more knobs and to the banks of the North Fork Piney River. We had planned to tent there, but the day was still young (3PM) and we decided to press on and look for a place to pitch the tent. There were two trees at this site that bear mentioning. At some point there was over 10' of top soil in this area. The river has eroded that soil away and these two trees seem to have grown up the side of 10' - 15' high boulders. Took pictures and will post them later. Leaving the river it was up Wolf Rocks over Greasy Spring Rd to a little clearing. It is just big enough for our tent (almost). It started to rain and we figured this would be the last spot for the next 2 miles. We got the tent up and inside before it got serious. Cold dinner as it is unsafe to have an open flame stove going in our fragile nylon home.
We did 10.4 miles today and will do about the same tomorrow. I hope the rain stops in the night. Would be nice to have a hot breakfast. Loosing light so this is it for today. CC is already tucked in and has fallen asleep. We just went over the 200 mile mark. 207 miles since Harpers Ferry, and only 1967 miles left to go :-) Today was our 21st day of walking, giving us an average of 9.85 miles per day. Not a bad start to our long walk.

Patrick, Deborah Mooney aka OD & CC
All Who Wander Are Not Lost

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