Day 2: 10/16; 56.2 miles to stealth campsite on US Forest Service land near the Steel Bridge campground; 3,191 feet of climbing; TM: 71.8; TC: 3,777.
It rained hard in the morning, but we sat out part of the deluge with an early lunch on the covered porch of a convenience store/deli in Pembroke VA.
It took us longer than expected to work our way through the hills outside of town. But after we scaled the morning’s final summit, a generous tailwind helped push us to Paint Bank by 4 pm.
Dave had his heart set on a warm meal at the touristy Swinging Bridge restaurant in town.
It took over an hour for us to get a table. But the waitress served us quickly after we explained to her that we were touring on bicycles and hoped to find a campsite before dark.
Before today, I had been under the misimpression that my iPhone 11 Pro was waterproof. But when I tried to recharge it in the restaurant after riding through the morning’s rain, the phone said it had detected fluid in the lightning connector and could not recharge until the connector had dried.
If my phone had failed, it would have been a disaster, because I was relying primarily on it for navigation. Fortunately, I was able to dry the connector with the hand dryer in the restroom and the phone worked fine after that.
Dave and I thought the Steel Bridge campground 3.5 miles outside of town was already full for the night. So we set up our tents in an informal site—that is, without a bathroom, picnic table or tap water—on public land near the campground.
As we discovered the next morning, several sites with picnic tables were unoccupied in the formal camping area, where vault toilets also were available.
For more trip details and photos, please see Allegheny Mountains Loop, Day 3.
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| Waiting out the rain |
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| Dave on gravel |
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| Buffalo farm |
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| Dave's meal at the Swinging Bridge |
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| Informal site near Steel Bridge Campground |
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