“There will always be rocks in the road ahead of us. They will be stumbling blocks or stepping stones; it all depends on how you use them.”
~Friedrich Nietzsche
June 26, 2021
Hike Lamberts Meadow Shelter to Daleville (Rt 220)
AT miles: 9.4
Ascent: 1253′
Descent: 2057′
Weather: sunny and warm
Sightings: more lizards, some squirrels, and a box turtle
High points: my shower when I got to the Super 8 Motel in Daleville
I had thought that today’s hike would be short and easy. Well, I was half right. It was less than 10 miles from the shelter to Daleville, so it was a short hike, but it was definitely not an easy one. I didn’t take into account the rocks!
The first part was misleadingly gentle.
I even had an amazing view or two that reminded me of Tinker Cliffs!
But then the rocks began. Sometimes the rocks were huge and the trail went around them. These were impressive but not problematic.
But then the trail started to have medium sized rocks, ones that were too small to build the trail around and too big to step over. Mostly I could hold my hiking poles in one hand and find find a handhold of some kind to help me balance and climb, but occasionally I had to resort to sitting and rotating. Except for Laurel Falls in Tennessee, this was the most challenging bit of trail so far!
The trail crossed under many powerlines, and powerlines mean open grasslands, so I walked by lots of wildflowers!
This bright bushy flower is yellow indigo, a member of the Baptisia family. A native medicinal herb, it can be used to make herb tea!
Another sunny flower I bumped into numerous times today is the woodland sunflower. The seeds and roots of this cheery plant are edible. The seeds can be roasted and eaten, and both the seeds and root can be ground and used to thicken soups.
I had numerous views of Carbins Cove Reservoir, which provides water for the city of Roanoke.
Civilization is surprisingly present in the woods. I could hear the traffic noise from I-81 for miles, I could hear the whistle of trains from even further away, and the buzz of planes and helicopters is ubiquitous. It was kind of fun, though, to walk around a corner on the trail and bump into a great view of Daleville, where I was headed.
About two miles from Daleville the trail turned into the smooth downhill path that I have been expecting. I sped down the path, and then abruptly the trail left the woods and crossed Rt 220, a busy fast-moving four-lane highway. After waiting quite a while the traffic did clear and I scooted across. The hotel where I had a reservation was 0.2 miles down the highway, so after a few minutes of loud highway walking I reached the cool air conditioning of the hotel.
Daleville is a true trail town — the AT runs right through it and the town welcomes hikers. Daleville restaurants and hotels are used to scruffy people with large backpacks coming into town, resupplying, doing laundry and eating prodigious quantities of food. Since southwestern Virginia is very remote, this is the largest town most hikers have seen since Damascus, 260 miles ago! Checkout time at the hotel was 11:00, and I arrived at 10:45, just in time to see seven thruhikers checking out, throwing on their packs, and heading northward once again. Among them were NoSun and Papa Canuck, about whom you will hear more tomorrow.
The shelter where I had been hoping to stay just outside Daleville apparently has several copperheads in residence. I am understandably reluctant to share my sleeping accommodations with copperheads, so I decided to spend the rest of today relaxing in Daleville. Tomorrow I will have a long 21-mile walk to my car, but theoretically it should be a straightforward hike with no huge mountains. In any case a 21-mile hike is much better than encountering a copperhead right outside my tent, like one poor hiker did last week at that shelter. We’ll see!
Today is a great day for a long walk in the woods!