Letter From Kalb: The Bridge over the River Tye

Sunday, June 9, 2002

Hey from somewhere in Virginia,

Okay, so the bridge over the James River was the notable one (it cost several million dollars to build and is the longest foot bridge on the trail), but I couldn't not make the play off the Pierre Boulle novel. And anyway, the one on the Tye was this weird suspension bridge that swayed as you walked over it, which was disconcerting.

This was the first section of the trail where the trail really went below 1,000 feet with all of the river crossings and a hike along the Lynchburg municipal reservoir. What was annoying about this was that I still had to go back up to 4,000 feet (the next is Mt. Moosilauke in New Hampshire), and after a couple of weeks of brisk weather, the realities of summer has set in, making the 3,000 foot climbs more difficult.

At least I know that I won't have many more 3,000 foot climbs for a while, as the trail goes over its last 3,000-footer until the northern end of Massachusetts in about fifty miles, and as the trail doesn't pass through Death Valley, that means that a 3000 foot climb is mathematically impossible for a little while, which is good, as the heat is only going to get worse, and the rocks in Pennsylvania are supposed to be awful.

Some of you might note that I'm several days late in getting here. I had made my mileage calculations under the assumption that next week I was going to magically be able to do twenty miles every day, and I also had to take a little time off. In Troutville, I had planned to leave the afternoon after I wrote my last update, after going to another outfitter and taking care of a few minor items. Unfortunately, I did not find out until after I spent $25 on a taxi ride there (and committed myself to $25 going the other way) that they did not have any fuel for my stove, nor did they have any shorts larger than size medium. So I was stuck until at least ten A.M. on Monday, when I finally got to go to the nearby outfitter, which had what I needed. On my next resupply stop in the lovely little town of Glasgow, I also picked up a stomach virus, and I decided that being near civilization was a good idea for a day or so.

There's also a silver lining to my late arrival: Memorial Day. Had I arrived here on the 25th, I would have been entering Shenandoah National Park on a major weekend, which would have meant that the place would have been a zoo. And, I met up with some people who were behind me, so all is well.

One weird trend has been that a lot of people have been coupling up lately. Obviously, not that many, as the trail is eighty percent male, but several people have. Unfortunately, this has made reading registers significantly less fun, because instead of reading entries with the two people making fun of each other, it's turned to mushy stuff. If I can get ahead of a couple of the worst offenders, I'm thinking about poking some fun at them—either write entries as a couple or get into fights in the registers.

This town is really nice. There's a list of people who provide free rides to hikers, and there are signs all over the place advertising stuff for hikers. It's definitely vying for top honors.

Anyway, my hour is nearly up, so I must get going.

Take care,

John

Letter From Kalb: The Bridge over the River Tye

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