A couple miles from West Virginia (995 miles from GA)

Hi Everyone,

We got off trail for a really short break to chill at home and organize the boxes that we are mailing ourselves. It has been great to be in civilization, but we are ready to hit the trail again. Except that as always we are up late finishing/organizing everything.

Shenandoah was really awesome! At first we were skeptical, because the AT crosses the road every 2-3 miles, but the views were awesome and it was great to stop in at restaurants along the way for food.

Becky finally got grilled salmon, but because we had dinner at the resort, we decided to night hike to make up the mileage. As we were night hiking we ran across a bear!  Yeah! We think he was sleeping in a tree and when we came upon him he scrambled out. We went up the trail a bit more and Becky saw his huge butt as he was lumbering away. Unfortunately though we were on a ridge, so we couldn't get by him without being 10 feet away, because the bear didn't want to go further down the ridge. We don't think he could tell what we were because we were blinding him with our headlights. But we were supper tired, so we clanked our hiking polls together and he finally moved farther down the ridge so that we could get by. Then the next day we saw a bear in the daylight. He was adorable and really curious! However he was pretty far away so it was difficult to get a good picture of him, but we swear there is a bear in the picture below!

From now on, we will be carrying a camera cord, which we picked up from home.  So we'll be able to post more pictures. Here's a few.

Becky's trying to pet and play with a horse, but he just wants to eat her shorts probably because of the salt. Not the best bath option, but not too bad.

We've seen a lot of really cool toads on the trail. We even met one hiker who killed, gutted, cooked, and ate a frog. We have not gotten that hungry yet!

This was such an interesting sign. We think it's real, but maybe a joke. We're not sure because we never saw any lost cows. We don't know what we would do if we saw this cow walking up the trail.

We've seen a lot of great views.

And we've been camping in beautiful places in the woods

and even out of the woods. This is at the YMCA in Waynesboro. A family of geese were hanging out at our campsite too.

Becky got a quick shot of Amanda sleeping.

A cool salamander we saw. The orange ones are always really awesome to see.

We've been seeing deer the entire time especially in Shenandoah. Here's one walking along the AT too. It's hard to tell, but he had some amazingly big and fuzzy antlers. 

Because of the heat we've even been waking up earlier, so we've caught some great sunrises.

Well that's it for now.

Happy Trails,

Maple and Oak

Waynesboro, VA (In town avoiding the heat wave!)

Hi all,

We're in Waynesboro VA (854 miles from Georgia).  We now only have 1,327 miles to go.  Wow that seems like a lot on this computer screen!

In the middle of our 8 day trek from Daleville to Waynesboro Becky decided that she couldn't stay on the AT any longer (she was feeling trapped by the white blazes, lol).  So we took a side trail to see Crabtree falls.  Every once in a while we take side trails as proof that we're not just on a steady trudge to Maine.  One would think that hiking the AT is about wandering in the woods; but sometimes its too easy to only think about the goal of Maine, and loose sight of the adventure along the way.

We're now intently reading the guide book looking for any reference of a swimming hole and planning accordingly, even if it means hiking a 24 mile day.  Its getting hot!  However we can't think of a cooler spot than the Appalachian ridges.  However crossing the brutally hot cow pastures can be a challenge on multiple levels.  One its hot and two Amanda's constantly afraid Becky will loose her head and try to pet a cow, but so far the flies have kept her away. As we were watching the cows wallowing in a muddy stream, a hiker passed us and said "Don't you just want to jump in there with them." We looked at each other and cringed.  The water was so gross, no heat wave would have possessed me to jump in that water.  Amanda wanted to call the VA water board and report the farm, but we think it might be legal in VA to have cows in rivers depending on the size of the stream.  This is why we filter water!

We're camping for free at the YMCA in Waynesboro, VA.  We saw more wildlife camping outside the YMCA then on the trail (an otter, a family of geese, and a family of ducks).  The town is really hiker friendly; everyone is willing to help out the AT hikers.  Essentially we are just a group of wandering vagrants, but as long as you're a vagrant with a lofty goal (such as walking from GA to MA), everyone is excited to help you out!

Happy trails,
Amanda and Becky
"Maple and Oak" (The Twins or as one hiker said "just a couple of hardwoods")

Also if you're looking for a short hike in VA Dragons Tooth, McAfee's knob and Tinker Cliffs were all gorgeous.