This Rollercoaster Ain’t A Enjoyable Journey

Russell and Jessie wrap up Virginia with the rollercoaster, a quite merciless phase of path, and make their method in direction of Harper’s Ferry!

June Twenty ninth-Thirtieth, 2026

Jessie with the rollercoaster warning signal.

For a state that we’ve got develop into so intimate with over the course of our 41 days strolling by it, you’d suppose it will be fairly the celebration to wrap it up. This definitely would have been the case had the state not ended with the curler coaster.

This was a 15 mile stretch of path that outlined the time period PUD (pointless up and down). As far as I might inform, there was no true discernible motive as to why the trailblazers felt the necessity to take us by such randomly steep terrain. What I do know, is that they begin it with a quite taunting signal. Sometimes I feel they wish to be merciless.

We had seen this part on an elevation map and had been dreading it for weeks. Now it was time to get it accomplished. It truthfully wouldn’t have been horrible had we not additionally been in the midst of a heatwave. The climate was calling for a excessive of 90 levels. We rationalized going by with the endeavor by the truth that virtually each trough of the rollercoaster had a water supply. We’d be sizzling, however hydrated.

Me, Sal, and Jessie celebrating!

We walked alongside, huffing on the uphills and cursing and sliding on the downhills. Eventually we fell into the rhythm of the path and (solely talking for myself) stopped counting what number of extra pointless peaks there have been. Not too far in and we noticed the signal for 1000 miles.

Me and Jessie on the 1000 mile signal.

It felt fairly spectacular to have made it thus far. We are almost midway there now. Harper’s Ferry is the religious midway level, now simply on the opposite finish of this tough patch of footpath. We stopped for a protracted snack break staring on the signal and pondering what it meant for every of us.

We virtually regretted our snack break a bit of bit as we moved on solely to find path magic almost 500ft later. If we had identified there was chili, I’d’ve eaten FAR much less goldfish. The of us had been extremely type, however we didn’t stick round for lengthy as we had a major quantity of coaster left to experience.

Jessie and Sal having fun with some ice cream and soda.

Up and down and up and down. Eventually I used to be capable of utterly disassociate till my physique simply moved in its personal. I lastly got here to on the signal for the Bear’s Den Hostel. I used to be shocked to see a beautiful fortress of stone that not solely had soda stocked, however pints of Icecream as effectively.

The highway crossings had been atrocious. It was presumably the busiest blind curve we had seen on path.

We determined to make the ultimate push into West Virginia on the heels of our sugar rush. The pleasure was palpable within the air as we wrapped up with Virginia. The longest state of the Appalachian path was now behind us, and we discovered a gorgeous campsite to have fun.

Me and Jessie exhausted on the West Virginia border.

A beautiful sundown complimented our achievement (I suppose we’d dip again into Virginia for a mile sooner or later however that doesn’t depend). For the primary time in over a month, we had been sleeping in a brand new state.

An exquisite introduction to West Virginia.

The subsequent day we simply pushed miles to camp proper outdoors of Harper’s Ferry. We needed ample time on the town and figured a near0 could be the nicest option to deal with making miles and getting essentially the most out of our hostel keep.

I had been fascinated with strolling into Harper’s Ferry since we began the path. It’s virtually surreal that we’ve lastly made it this far. This complete factor all of a sudden feels much more attainable.

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