Hello our wonderful people! Welcome back to saucyhikes, we’ve missed you. We’d like to start this blog post out with an apology… we know the text is hard to read because of its color. This is not something we can fix because there’s a glitch with our app, we’ve been trying new color combos so let us know if this is better.
VA TRIPLE CROWN!!
We finished the Virginia Triple Crown in two days! This is known as the toughest section of trail in VA because of its three peaks at high elevation with technical climbing. In the last post, you saw us at Dragons Tooth, but we have since conquered Tinker Cliffs and McAfee’s Knob to complete the triple crown.
Welcome Matteo and Dill to the trail!
We were lucky enough to have some of our best friends from home come hang with us for a few days. Matteo and Dillion are both doing responsible adult things by going to grad school at UVA, but they made some time to meet us during the 10 day long rainy stretch we got stuck in. Dillion unfortunately couldn’t hike with us, but Matteo got to experience all the joys of the AT including some trail magic, pouring rain, pickle juice martinis, and card games in the tent. He crushed out 32 miles with us in two days!
Lucy has a trail name!!
The long awaited trail name has come… meet Chameleon! As some of you know, this name was given to her after the major ankle sprain on week one. Her ankle and really entire foot were changing color, so of course Chameleon made sense. That and she has lots of personality traits which work well for fitting in with most of the crazy trail people she’s met. She did a lot of thinking about this, and after Matteo pulled out a Chameleon card on his quick visit, it was right.
Hiking is hard and the VA blues started to hit…
It’s now been over a month since Chameleon got back on trail post injury, and saucy has been PUSHING miles. We’ve been tough on our bodies, and have not been giving ourselves reasonable rest. VA is the longest section of the AT totaling 550 miles which all somehow look alike. Its started to feel mentally draining hiking what feels like the same 10 miles over and over again with some tough elevation. This feeling is commonly referred to as the Virginia Blues and they have started to catch Saucy. Ladybug had an unfortunate day where she broke a pole, fell in a stream, and lost her tooth brush, all in 90° weather. To make matters worse, there was a 6 day stretch of rain where all of our gear stayed soaked. That being said, it was time for a reset at home.
Home sweet home!
Thankfully, everything timed out perfectly with a visit home for a music festival. Of course Saucy had to add some EDM to the hike, so we got to enjoy to comforts of home while having a great time at Project Glow. Shout out Isaac for picking us up from the trail and driving our friends Boots and Scurvy to a bar before bringing us home! Don’t worry, we still managed to get upwards of 25,000 steps a day, even on our “zero” days. If only those counted towards AT miles!
We are back and better than ever!
Saucy is now back on trail with some new gear (Ladybug has two poles again) and much higher spirits. Sometimes all it takes is a good rave, family time, and a shower in something other than a hostel with four people waiting. We’re coming up on the Shenandoah’s which is a section we’ve been really looking forward to because it feels like home, and we’ve hiked a good chunk of it so seeing shelters we’ve stayed at in the past will be a trip. And the day we get out of VA may be the best day on trail so far. Anyway, thank you for all the continued support and love. Saucy signing off for now!
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