Before leaving the shelter today we looked at the guidebook and saw that there was a bench sitting right at the top of Brushy Mountain, the one big hill for the day. When I finally made it to the top the bench was magnificent of course, but on the way up it was torturous looking for a bench around every switchback. Usually it’s pretty easy to tell when you’re near the top of a mountain – blue sky instead of more trees and some kind of change in terrain. On Brushy Mountain though it felt like I could see the sky in front of me at every turn, and since the first half of the climb was less steep it felt like I had walked farther than I really had. The top of the mountain and the bench were only 4.3 miles into the day, but I felt like taking a nap.
Strider was there ahead of me, Wilderness was along in a few minutes and we had a good break before walking a whole 0.8 miles to the Audi Murphy monument. I had already been to his grave in Arlington but even so I wasn’t sure why there was a monument for him on a Virginia mountain. Turns out he died in a plane crash near this spot and was buried in Arlington. We didn’t stay long though, at the bench we were commenting on how blue the sky was and now thunder cracked loudly and the sky was wholly gray. Within minutes it started pouring and we were on the way to Pickle Branch five miles away. For a while I was pretty high up on the ridge during the storm but the thunder and lightning had mostly passed.
Pickle Branch is a ways off the trail, but it has to be because it’s the last water source for about nine miles. Because it’s off the trail though it’s lightly used, even today with the rain – only one person here besides me, Strider, and Wilderness – another cool older section hiker called Seeker. Actually he had another better term for himself that applies to everyone here besides me, ‘LASHer’ for Long Ass Section Hiker.