Appalachian Trail (day 29) - Dismal Falls to Pearisburg / mile 638

Resupply day. I was thinking about staying in town for the night but norovirus warning made me change the plans.

I've set the alarm at 5 AM as I still had quite a way to go before getting to Pearisburg. My headlamp decided to die after 10 minutes even though I recharged it two days ago. Since the sunrise was still an hour away I had to use the phone to see what I was doing.

Trail after first sizeable climb was pretty straight forward, I've passed a couple of slack-packers along the way (I never know if they are day hikers or they are thru hiking like me). At 2 PM the clouds rolled in and weather turned momentarily from a serene, sunny afternoon to a heavy clouds and rain better stay at home one. Luckily it only rained for an hour but I still was completely soaked by the end of it.

I've arrived at Pearisburg at 3 PM and went to Food Lion to resupply, they had good selection and decent prices, I've paid 50$ for four days of food, a bag of fried chicken with potato wedges, some fruit and a soda. I've sat outside the supermarket hiker trash style eating and repackaging the supplies. An old gentleman stoped by, he couldn't believe that I came here just to hike the Appalachian Trail and that I was doing it in four months. He also supported my choice of using SPAM as the main source of protein on the trail.

Pearisburg was the only town for the next 90 miles, I was considering staying here for the night, but recently there was a lot of hikers getting infected with norovirus here, no one knew exactly at which hostel so the town in general has become a norovirus hot spot.

Once I've sorted everything out I started to head back to trail. While I was walking a car stopped and a middle aged woman offered me a ride back to trail. It turned out that she was a wife of Side Tracked, one of the hikers I met and hiked with two days ago. Snackerz  (that was her trail name) was following her husband along the trail sorting out his resupply, setting up their caravan and every now and then doing trail magic. She dropped me back by the white blaze and even offered me a beer and a cookie!

I only hiked another mile from here and called it a day. There was no "official" campsite for the next six miles and it was getting late. I've found a decent camp spot on a small hill between the highway and a train tracks, which meant that it would be a bit noisy at night but it was still much better than getting norovirus.