5-29-2009 Fri

Start point: Trents Grocery
End point: Woods Hole Hostel
miles hiked: 14

Got up super early (before 6am) and headed up to Dismal Creek Falls, which you get to on a blue-blazed trail, .3 miles off the AT. The rain from the past couple days made this creek swollen so the falls were ragin'. Hung out at the falls and ate breakfast. So my morning started off good, then the day kinda went south. I hadn't gotten very good sleep and wanted to nap, so I got down to what I think was the White Pine Horse Campground. (On the way there, the trail was getting overgrown and all these wet branches kept hitting me, annoying..) It was a semi dry spot where there was a big bare spot that the sun could get through, thats where I set up my tent to dry and took a nap. The sun had come out but it was only a joke, it started sprinkling again just when my stuff was almost dry. Hiked for another couple miles where I came up on Pig Pen, he had a topo map of the area and we talked about blue-blazing up this mountain we were about to have to climb. I managed to follow the blue blazes all the way up this creek filled path, and it turns out some of it used to be the old AT. I could see where the blazes on the trees had been white before and then painted blue. Was a tough climb, sometimes blue-blazes are shorter, but more difficult, so its kind of a catch 22 (especially in rain). Got to the Woods Hole Hostel, which I hadn't really planned on staying at, but my day had gotten kinda miserable so I figured I'd see if they had a bunk. Got there and they had tons of space. No hostel ever has this many empty bunks when its raining, whats the deal! Met a section hiker named Bellows, the owners were on a run to town so he gave me the run-down. What's nice is this hostel has been around a long time and has some cool history, plus they don't charge, just ask a suggested donation of $5 for the first night. Signed up for the home-made breakfast: $6.50. Skipping Stones and his wife Laura (now Puddle Jumper) showed up, they had gone to eat with the owners. Then Lucky, Dah Wah Heh and Quaid hiked in. So it was really cool to see old friends and be staying with everyone I know (with the exception of Bellows, and he turned out to be cool too).Theres always time for push-upsAnd these falls definitley represent