Five days of camping and hiking in the mountains of North Carolina and Virginia recently brought back memories of my big Appalachian Trail hike last year. I started out with a fast drive to Stone Mountain State Park near Elkin, N.C. where I hopped on the Widow's Creek Trail just before dark and headed straight for backcountry campsite A. 
Not five minutes into my hike I was joined by a new acquaintance, a young Pitt Bull puppy with no collar. He was pretty hungry and was obviously planning on sticking around. He followed me to camp and would not go away. I didn't bring enough food for him so, after setting up the tent, I decided to hike back to the car and get him something. He hiked the whole way with me and was rewarded with a couple of cans of Beenie Weenies. We then hiked back to camp and then set out for a 10-mile night-hike on the Mountains to Sea Trail. He spent the entire night sleeping just outside of my tent. The next morning he left my camp to join a couple of campers passing by who were going fly fishing. He never came back.
I packed up camp, hiked out of the park and headed for Mount Rogers in Virginia. After arriving I found a place to park the car for the night in the USFS Beartree Campground. From there I headed out on the Appalachian Trail to find a place to camp for the night. I hjiked about four miles South on the Trail and finally found a place to set up the tent. I met a thru-hiker, Alaska, on the hike. She was hiking with her border collie.
Saturday morning I hiked out of the park and drove into Damascus, Va. for a trip to the Mount Rogers Outfitters store. Then I drove back to Beartree Campground and met Herb Carleton with the local Sierra Club and set up my tent in the group site that the club had reserved for the next two nights. Herb drove me to the Lum Trail trailhead and I hiked that trail and connecting Iron Mountain and Shaw Gap trails for a 5-mile hike. The hike ended at the Beartree Campground where folks from the Sierra Club were arriving and setting up tents. I set out with the group for a short hike on the Virginia Creeper Trail.
After a short rest in camp I set out on a 7-mile night hike on the Shaw Gap and Beartree Gap trails. I got back into camp at about 10:30 pm where the rest of the group had already hit the sack for the night.
Sunday I hiked 12 miles with the Sierra Club on the Appalachian Trail to Rhododendron Gap in the Mount Rogers area, including a trip to the summit of Mount Rogers. On Monday, five of us hiked on the AT from Whitetop Mountain to Buzzard Rock. I then headed back toward home, stopping at Stone Mountain State Park and camping in the backcountry at Site A, once again.
