AT Day 1: VA - Massie Gap to Mt Rogers

June 24th – Saturday (4 miles) - It’s been a whirlwind day! My wife Jan and I flew from CT to TN, got a shuttle from there to the Dancing Bear Inn where we’ll stay at the end of our trip to drop off our bags, and then quickly shuttled to the trailhead in Massie Gap, VA. It’s a fantastic place to start our backpacking trip because we’ll pass through the beautiful Grayson Highlands where wild ponies roam free. Jan is coming with me for two reasons, first I love hiking and spending time with her in the backcountry, and second to make sure and moderate my pace as I use these 4 days to test out my surgically rebuilt lower back while hiking with a full backpack, before I attempt to hike hundreds of miles on my next trip in a few days.

After years of progressively worsening back pain, I finally had my L4-L5 vertebra fused back in February. That area of my spine is reinforced with titanium spacers to make room for the nerves running to my legs which will stop the nerves from continuing to be crushed by a vertebra which had slipped forward. I also have titanium posts and screws to stabilize the vertebrae, and bone grafts where the discs had been to allow L4 and L5 to grow into one larger bone. My back feels great and I’ve been given clearance from my surgical team to do these backpacking trips, as well as climb Mt Rainier in August, so I don’t feel as though I’m taking risks. My surgeon’s only advice was “don’t be stupid,” and that’s why Jan is here, to make sure I don’t do that in my first few days on the trail. I’ve already logged hundreds of miles since the surgery graduating from walking with a walker, to using trekking poles for stability while walking on roads, to walking on well-groomed dirt paths with poles, to hiking on rougher trails with poles, and finally some limited trail running in the past month or so.

Hiking today is an easy day, it’s only 3 miles to our campsite at the Thomas Knob Shelter which is good since we got to the trailhead later than planned due to flight delays (American Airlines … grrrr). Then we’ll do a quick out and back from the shelter to the summit of Mt Rogers, the high point in VA, which is on a half mile side trail near the shelter.

Of course, on the way to the trailhead it started to rain… that is life hiking with me. When I hike it’s either raining, snowing, below zero, or a combination of the three! Wolf dropped us off at the Massie Gap trailhead and we headed up the mountain. Though it sprinkled periodically, it wasn’t enough to warrant rain gear and there was pretty good visibility, so the views were still quite good.

We had fun going through many rhododendron patches as well as the “Fat Man Squeeze,” which is a series of very tight rocks to pass through in the mountains.

Thomas Knob Shelter is a double-decker shelter meaning there’s a main floor in the lean-to and then a ladder to a loft above. We chose the main floor because it’d be much easier to get up at night and go out to use the privy. There were several people at the shelter, and by evening we had 9 people staying there… 4 on the main deck, and 5 in the loft. Jan wasn’t feeling well so I ran off on my own to bag the summit of Mt Rogers.

When I came back I filtered water for us at a spring and made dinner. We met a guy thru-hiking who was heading to the next shelter but stopped at ours for a quick breather. His pack is a whopping 60 lbs (for reference mine is 27 lbs) since he likes to carry a lot of food and cook fancy dinners and breakfasts. A few others staying at our shelter said they try to follow him to most shelters because he always cooks more than he needs and shares the delicious food he makes with the people at the camp.