It’s certainly hunting season out here

“Do y’all have anything orange to wear?”

We’ve been seeing and hearing a lot of hunters. Indeed, we ran into no less than 7 trucks on the dirt road intersection of VA 623. It’s muzzle-loading season at the moment, and some local hunters explained the whole process to me, from forming their own bullets to improving their caliber. For example, they like to carry their deer down the AT! One lazy hunter even left a carcass at the intersection. Each hunter made a point to stop to tell us to wear orange through January in these mountains, several emphasizing that there are poor or irresponsible hunters that cause them concern. We are hoping to run into fewer hunters in the upcoming Mt Rogers recreation area during the week days to come, but we also promptly outfitted ourselves at the next army-navy supply in Marion, VA, where we shared lunch with another hiker, named Mice.

I guess that means Bougie will be wearing the Tilly less often:

One hunter also explained that we had just camped at the best bear hunting mountain in the area! While I’m on the topic of bear hunting, one teenage clerk at the gas station laughed at my bear spray and then showed me videos of the bears she had hunted since she was 4 years old!

Unfortunately, the leaves have fallen, making the few views in this section less interesting and making the trail harder to find.

Here are our best views:

We did, though, visit an Alpaca farm; look at these cuties:

On the agenda for this week are Mt Rogers & the famous Grayson Highlands!