We woke up at 7 AM, and packed up our belongings, and were ready to head out at about 8. Today was going to be a short day, with us only needing to cover about 14 miles. Before we headed out, we conversed with a young man, probably in his twenties, who told us about the Partnership Shelter. It was located about a fifth of a mile away from the Mt Rogers National Recreation Area HQ, and from there you can take a bus into the town of Sugar Grove. He also told us that many people have pizza deliveries made to the shelter, and that he was planning the same. We knew that were weren’t going to be able to get the 24 miles in one day though, and therefore were not going to able to enjoy that shelter, but we wished him luck as he went on his way.

We started the day off with a little down to the state road, and then about 2 miles up to the Iron Mountain Trail. From there it was a bit more than a mile down to the shelter, and then 2.5 miles after that to the base. We reached the Hurricane Mountain Shelter at about 11, but it was too early to eat lunch, so we decided that we’d go all the way down, and have our lunch there. After the shelter, the downhill got much steeper, and my toes had started to hurt a bit again. Luckily I was able to bear through it and we reached the bottom at a bit past noon. There were many places along the way down to fill up water, but we decided to wait until the bottom so we wouldn’t have to be carrying extra water and so we could fill up our packs and bottles right after lunch. For lunch we had tuna and naan, finishing off the last bit of naan we had brought for this trip.

After lunch, there was a small uphill to Comers Creek Falls, where we saw a few day hikers. The fall was amazing and flowing, and crossing it was not an issue, although it was a bit slippery at spots. Half an hour later, we arrived at Dickey Gap, where you can access the road to take you to Troutdale, VA. From here it was one big gradual up and down to the shelter, spanning around 5.5 miles, which we were able to cover in about 2.5 hours. We arrived at Trimpi Shelter pretty early, and had a lot of time to set up, collect water, and eat dinner. The shelter had a stone fireplace inside, but we decided not to use it since it wasn’t really cold at all. While my dad set up the mats and got the food ready, I went down to the piped spring and filled up a bottle of water. For dinner we ate choley and rice, and had some trail mix as a snack, and then we went to bed at 7.