START TIME: 5:05 AM 
END TIME: 10:15 PM
For the 7th time in 9 days, Jen hiked over 50 miles. She left Matts Creek Shelter before dawn and Rebecca and I slept another 45 minutes or so before packing up and hiking the 2 miles back to VA 501. I drove into Big Island to pick up breakfast sandwiches and coffee while Rebecca drove around to meet Jen at Petites Gap.
For most of the day, we were able to see her every few miles as she crisscrossed the Blue Ridge Parkway. She did have one or two longer stretches, and Rebecca would hike in on those. But for the first half of the day, we were seeing her about every hour.
One thing that made the day more fun for Jen, Rebecca, and me was that we ran into some guys from Lynchburg—Jeremy Ramsey, Frank Gonzalez, and Kevin (I didn’t catch Kevin’s last name)—who were doing a 30-mile training run along the AT. They ran into Jen a couple of times, chatted with her, and sat with us at some of road crossings. It was pretty cool hearing these elite trail runners—guys who were out for a 30 mile training run—talking about what a freak of nature Jen was.
A little later in the day, I was turning around in the middle of a gravel road when a mountain biker in a funny-looking unitard came careening down the hill. I started to apologize for blocking him then I realized it was Horton. He’d ridden 78 miles round-trip from Lynchburg to say “hi” and hang out for a few minutes. The guy just finished mountain biking 120 miles a day for almost a month on the Western Continental Divide and he’s back on his bike already. What a wingnut. (Kidding, Horton. Sort of . . .)
Later in the day, another Lynchburg trail runner named Gratton Garboe brought us a spaghetti dinner and turned out to be a big help with some logistical issues.
HERE’S WHAT HAPPENED: There was a little-used forest road that was gated near the Blue Ridge Parkway. I drove around to access it because it fell in the middle of a 13-mile section and because Horton provoked me by saying Kadrah couldn’t find it when she was crewing Adam. So, of course, I accepted the challenge and went looking for it. And I found it.
But the drive up was gnarly and it took a long time, and I didn’t want to make a second trip. Fortunately, I had cell phone service and Gratton, who’d already found the girls, had his phone on. I got in touch with him and Rebecca and told them I was staying put and that they should send Jen on.
Jen and Rebecca got to eat some of the spaghetti that Gratton had brought, but I didn’t (since, you know, I was proving my masculinity and all by finding a road) so he was nice enough to run down from the Parkway to deliver dinner and keep me company for a while.
Jen came through around 8:05. She was talking about how tough the last stretch was, so we decided that she should stop at Fullhardt Knob Shelter. Rebecca was already hiking in from Mountain Pass Road to meet her and either camp at the shelter or hike the last 3 miles to VA 652.
Right as Jen was leaving, I said I was getting a hotel room in Daleville and that she could shower there when she came out in the morning. Well, about ten minutes after Gratton headed back to his car and I headed down the mountain, Jen called and said in this exaggerated sad, whiny, self-aware voice that she sometimes uses after hiking 50 miles a day, “I want to stay in the hotel with you . . . and I want to sleep in a bed and I want to take a shower . . . This [carrying an overnight pack] is an inefficient use of my energy. . . . I’m only three miles from the road . . .” It was really pathetic . . . but cute, too.
Down the mountain, there was another defunct road that we thought might lead up to the trail, but we hadn’t tried to use it because we weren’t sure. I’d already started hiking up it to surprise Jen. So when she called, I was able to find her, take her pack, and let her keep going down the mountain. Then about five minutes after Jen and I ran into each other, we ran into Rebecca.
On hikes like this, every now and then, you have these significant moments where you experience the essence of endurance hiking. Seeing Jen and Warren cross the Kennebec was one of those moments. Watching Jen dance and scream the Mumford & Sons line, “I’ll find STRENGTH IN PAIN,” when she finished the Whites was another. And having Rebecca and me converge to meet her when she really needed it was a third.
Endurance hikes aren’t for everyone. They’re a different sort of experience. But after being out here for over a month, I’m convinced that you can draw just as much meaning from them and from the relationships you create during them as from a traditional thru-hike. You just have to know where to look.