Hightop Hut to Bearfence Mountain Hut

Decided to do shorter miles today than I had originally planned because of Memorial Day weekend and the campsite I was shooting for, is full of weekend campers. It was sort of nice not to be in a hurry.

Photo is of a few of the younger guys (Sasquatch, Pyro, Gazelle and Fritz)

 Its not often that you see them hiking in a clump like this, but they were getting close to Lewis Mountain campstore(another perk of the Shenandoahs) and laundry, shower, snacks, soda and beer. Not necessarily in that order. 

There were several trails leading back out to the AT from the campstore to the hut. Some of them would shorten the mileage to the hut by a few tenths of a mile, but technically that would be cheating. The 'purists' insist on doing every little tiny bit of the trail. So, we all walked back to the point where we had entered the campsite, and headed to the hut. Right as I got back to the trail, I ran into 19, one of the guys I saw all the time early on, but had not seen in about a month. His buddy, Bubba was not far behind. Also ran in to Toast and Big Spoon(banjo and fiddle guys that I started with) hadn't seen them in over 400 miles we figured out. So good to run in to familiar faces.

The trail here continues to be great. Making good progress.