Mile 1333 – Paul Wolfe Shelter To Mile 1341 – Humpback Rocks Trail
It is Thanksgiving day and we were planning to meet Brenda in the afternoon. Because the Blue Ridge Parkway is still closed, our options for accessible parking areas are limited. We’ve already scaled back our plan twice and this morning we were targeting the next open road crossing about 14 miles ahead.
Last night we decided to give this section one more day and if we don’t see improvement then our plan would be to jump past the damaged area and return to complete this section after crews have had time to complete their work. Within the first ten minutes we knew there would not be improvement. After an incredibly frustrating three miles we realized that we would not even be able to make it to our planned meeting location before dark. Time to bail out.
Well, at least the tree with the blaze is still standing
We got out the map and found that we were a few miles from a side trail that would take us to the parking area for Humpback Rocks. From there we could walk on Blue Ridge Parkway back toward Waynesboro. It took a couple of hours but we successfully made it to the parking area and started the six mile road walk.
Empty parking area at Humpback Rocks
After only two miles on the closed road we saw a car parked in the distance next to a barricade with a family getting out. I asked them how they managed to drive to that location given that the parkway is closed. They told me about a single lane country road that was not on my map and which intersects with the parkway. Score! We were able to give directions to Brenda to meet us there. It saved us about four more miles of road walking.
Blue Ridge Parkway is closed
She picked us up around lunchtime and we took the rest of the day off to celebrate the holiday.
Happy Thanksgiving!
RocketWalk 