Slept in but eventually we had to get up and pack up. It rained all morning so we hung around till 1 for the skies to clear up. Called a cab at 1:00 pm with a projected 45 min time to arrival. By 2:30 pm it still wasn’t there and the company couldn’t tell us when it would arrive. Called a trail angel instead and finally made it to the trail by 3:00 pm.
The straps on my bag are starting to come apart from wear and tear. I fixed them with a needle and floss as thread and gave ZPacks a call. They weren’t very helpful, I’ll put together a video review of the pack, the wear, and the customer service sometime soon.
Eight miles up we found a one room school house. Rick’s dad and a boy scout leader were doing trail magic. The hiker boxes at the school house are stocked by a local church group and are far better supplied that most.
Put in another mile after the trail magic and called it a day. My feet still hurt but we had a fire and a relaxing evening to top off what ended up being a pretty good day.
Day 52 Mileage: 9.5 mi [V.A. 16 Mount Rogers -> Campsite]
Total Mileage: 552.2 mi