All That the Rain Brings

Good afternoon, friends,

The sun has finally broken through after a week of on-and-off rain. In terms of morale, we hit a local low yesterday when we woke up at the less-than-desirable Chatfield Shelter around mile 540.

The day before, we had hiked our longest day yet at twenty-six miles. We were due for a hardy night’s rest. Unfortunately, rain blowing into the shelter, mice scaling our sleeping bags, every cell in our body being saturated, and everything we owned being wet to the touch was what we got instead.

Not only for the aforementioned reasons was the shelter less than desirable, but we also got to compare it to the shelter we had passed just a few hours earlier. This spot was located 0.1 miles from the Mount Roger’s National Forest HQ and Visitors Center, which sure gave you access to a cold shower, but it’s real merit was due to it being a location where the local pizza place will deliver. We opted to keep pushing an extra seven, but shoutout to “Pinch” who gave us a couple slices of supreme pizza and gobs of cheese fries. That gave us the fuel we needed to push to the shelter.

Speaking of Pinch, when we got to the Chatfield Shelter it was around 8pm and thunder clouds were rolling overhead. He and “Meemaw” were going decided to push down to the Settlers Museum of Southwest Virginia where they keep the facilities open overnight for thru-hikers and encourage folks to camp under their protected pavilion. We were dog tired by that point and looking to avoid the rain, so that 1.8 miles felt insurmountable.

In hindsight, it would’ve been much preferable to spend the night there, and we would’ve avoided such a miserable morning. We kind of goldilocks’d the exact wrong spot. However, they say night is darkest just before the dawn and this dawn, our fortune took a sharp turn upward.

After shoving all our wet stuff in our wet bags and resealing our wet clothes to our wet body, we grumbly hiked down to the Settlers Museum of Southern Virginia where we planned to brew coffee and attempt to dry off.

Before we got to the museum, there was a side trail, or a “blue blaze”, that led 0.1 miles to the 1890’s farmhouse attached to the museum. I do love side attractions, and particularly those in the 0.1-0.5 mile distance. With a little convincing of the rest of our party, we bared right off the AT. We came out into a clearing, surrounded by old farm buildings, when we saw four people stretching in a circle.

It was still before 8AM, and we weren’t really sure what we were walking into, but instinctively I shed my pack and started to get limber. We were maybe fifty feet away, lingering while I performatively touched my toes, before they waved us over.

“Are you hungry?” a woman yelled from beyond the circle.

“Always.” I responded sheepishly. We kind of felt like stray dogs that had wandered into someone’s backyard and we’re now seeing if we could somehow get food out of this.

Before we knew it, we were whisked away to a makeshift tent kitchen where the angelic Emily dolled out plates of eggs, biscuits and gravy, fruit, and yogurt. And, above all else, French-pressed coffee.

“Where are we? What’s going on?” we stammered.

It turns out the group of four, plus Emily, were part of the HistoriCorps, a non-profit that works to repair historic buildings on public land. They were here camping on the property for a couple weeks while they helped repair the farmhouse. We had just stumbled into them post-breakfast and mid morning stretch.

We hung out for an hour, learning how the organization worked and what they did, before continuing on to find our friends at the museum’s pavilion. The sun was burning through the clouds for the first time in a week and we felt reborn. It was a true lesson in how quickly the tide can turn on the trail. It doesn’t take much to help a person up out of a low place, and it’s almost always the kindness and compassion of strangers that will do it.

Anyway, last week I promised mushrooms and the rain delivered. Here are some of the highlights from what we’ve found. It’s still a war to add pictures on the app, and I’ve already battled through a lost draft (it says “saved” and then when I pull it back up the only thing that is “saved” is the title and subtitle), but we’re getting these mushrooms to the people one way or another. Here ya go:

Elfin saddle (Helvella sp.).Ciara found these ascomycetes growing out of the moss near a spring.

A yellow crust with a white margin spreading across dead hardwood. The fungus appeared to be growing out of last year’s fruiting body, which had aged to a dark brown. The cobwebby crust also bruised brown when I touched it. Outside of that, I have no clue what this fungus is up to. If anyone does, please let me know.

Xylaria popping out of the mossy earth. The white powder on these columnally inclined fungi are the condiospores, or the asexual spores. Later in the summer, these powdery spores will have dispersed and these tendrils will appear black while they release their sexual spores.

Little brown mushrooms growing out of the dung from the feral ponies of Virginia’s Grayson Highlands. Maybe something like Deconica coprophila?

More fungi on pony dung. Something in Psathyrella, I think. I was most excited about the dung fungi this week, and I got some dehydrated so we’ll hopefully learn more about them in the future.

Bonus coyote. After we watched her chase cattle through the Grayson highlands and come up empty-pawed, she quietly circled back to our camp to see if she could get some food the easy way. The walk-up-to-folks-stretching way. I was cutting cheese (what else is knew), when I looked up and she was maybe ten feet away from me. Every cell in my body wanted to toss her the cheddar, and I probably was going to, but C properly growled and our guest tucked tail and darted off. I will say I might have accidentally dropped a couple scoops of mac and cheese on the ground that night. Whoops.

Alright, folks. Time to hit the “not so dusty, actually quite saturated to the point where water is running down it” trail,

Aubrey

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