Abingdon Gap Shelter to Hiker’s Inn, Damascus

Appalachian Trail, 10.4 miles

Rain was predicted today, and it came right on time, just as we packed up and set off for Damascus. It got so dark just before the rainfall started that it felt like it was about 9pm! The rain felt cool and nice, and on the last day of a hike, you don’t even really care if you get wet because you know that a shower and dry clothes are just a few hours away.

We made great time today since the hike was mostly downward. It was only about 10am when we reached the Tennessee/Virginia state line. It sure felt good to put another state behind me!

By the time we got into Damascus just three and a half miles later, the rain had stopped.

Once we got down off the mountain, it was a short walk to Hikers Inn, where the owners, Paul and Lee, graciously provided us with thick, warm towels and a hot shower. It’s a lovely place and it was great to talk with Paul about his 2010 thru-hike.

And of course we then bee-lined it to Hey Joe’s for a fish taco lunch.

The day was topped off by a nice dinner at the Damascus Old Mill Inn with our Georgia friends (Zach, Scott, Jeff, and Rusty). They also finished their hike today, and were staying just a block away from Hikers Inn.

Tomorrow we head home. And I already have all sorts of plans for the next hike.

Double Springs Shelter to Abingdon Gap Shelter

Appalachian Trail, 8.3 miles

We were able to reach Jay by phone when the trail crossed 421 at Low Gap today. Thankfully, we found out that Matt is fine. Well, not exactly fine - he broke two vertebrae in his neck in a wrestling accident over the weekend, and had to have a metal rod put in to hold them together! But the surgery was successful and he’s going to be okay. He’s been in the hospital for a few days but is going home today. I texted him and his reply was pretty chipper so hopefully he is not feeling too bad.

We saw Bob Peoples today at a trailhead with a bunch of other guys wielding chainsaws and weed whips. Thursdays are trail-maintenance days for their group, and they were going at it. It is so cool the way they serve like that.

I can’t believe that tonight is our final night on the trail! We are camping with the four guys from Georgia. Three of them have hammocks, and they showed me how to hang them. I’m thinking of getting one. I’m not too crazy about the weight and bulk of a tent, so a hammock might be in my future.

I'm grateful for lots of time to relax and enjoy the quiet of the woods on days like this when we finish early. I think Tim is liking it too. Here he is, hard at work lounging and sudoku'ing. If you click the picture you can see the hammocks of our Georgia friends in the background.

Besides the four Georgia guys, there are two other people here at the shelter tonight. I yogi’d* some salt and olive oil from one of them because my dinner was so bland. Wouldn’t mind some sriracha sauce, but no one seems to have that out here. I seriously cannot quit thinking of the fish tacos I’m going to get at Hey Joe’s tomorrow.

*Yogi (verb): The art of "letting" food be offered cheerfully by strangers without actually asking them directly. Named after Yogi the Bear and his goodnatured luck in obtaining picnickers’ goodies.

Iron Mountain Shelter to Double Springs Shelter

Appalachian Trail, 7.6 miles

Finally a gentler day. Short and not much elevation gain. Despite the ease, I’ve developed a small blister on my left heel, so I babied my feet a bit today by going slower.

A mile or so into today’s hike, we passed a grave (!) along the trail - certainly not the kind of thing you see every day while hiking. A tombstone marks the burial place of Nick Grindstaff, a man who lived his last 40 years in this region as a hermit. Legend says that he was kept company only by his dog, a steer, and a pet rattlesnake. His tombstone’s inscription is rather morose: “Lived alone, suffered alone, and died alone.”

The trail also passed through a cow pasture today and it was oddly refreshing to step out of the woods into a big open space with no trees or rocks - just lots of grassy open hills (and plenty of cowpies). The cows were only mildly curious about the humans hiking past them.

A fence-hop was built into the trail as a way for hikers to get into and out of the cows’ fence (without letting the cows out).

We arrived at Double Springs Shelter in time for lunch, and it was Thai day at the Wheeler Bistro. Tim had a Thai peanut noodle dish, and I had Thai tuna. It was the best tuna I ever tasted. I am so happy my appetite is working properly on this trip! In previous trips I have had such a hard time refueling, because I seemed always plagued by a low-grade nauseous feeling, and no food ever seemed appetizing. I talked to a nutritionist about it a few months ago, and she suggested I eat a couple of dates and almonds every few hours while hiking (even if I’m not hungry), just to keep the pipes busy. It has helped a lot. I’ve had almost no nausea, and in fact right now I’m really jonesing for some fish tacos from Hey Joe’s in Damascus. Which is where we plan to eat our first “real” food after the trip is over.

Tonight we feel very spoiled to have a campsite right next to a spring. It is such a luxury to finally have as much water as we want. Tim even carved out a little pool downstream where we could soak our feet in the icy-cold water.

There is no cell service where we are tonight. Which is disturbing because Tim received a cryptic text message from Jay and we are not able to reach him to figure out what he meant. It said “I trust Jeanette told you about Matt.” (Matt is my nephew.) I have no idea what that means, but Jay apparently sent me a message about Matt that I didn’t receive yet because the cell signal is so poor, and I’m worried that something bad has happened to him. :( I’m trying not to think about it until we can reach a place where we can call someone and get clarification.

Vandeventer Shelter to Iron Mountain Shelter

Appalachian Trail, 6.9 miles

Why do I keep thinking the trail is going to get easier as the week goes on? Today seemed hard again, even though it was a short mileage day and the climbs weren’t as difficult as the previous two days. Not sure what’s up with that. Maybe the trail name Cupcake is really starting to take hold of me…

Tim has taken to brewing a mid-morning cup of coffee right on the trail. Which makes sense because we are in the habit of getting up early and hiking half of our mileage by about 10:30am. Here’s a shot of the trailside barista.

As we expected, there was very little water available today. I found one spring about halfway through the day, but it was just a trickle. Definitely not enough depth to sink the filter bulb. So I collected what I could by using a small cup and pouring it into one of my empty bottles, and then filtered it later. Inconvenient, but do-able.

Today we reached our highest elevation of the trip, around 4100 miles. I am my usual sweaty self as a result. The cute haircut I got right before this trip is not quite so cute today.

I miss my fam. I’ve texted with Jay and Maria a few times just to check in (Joe is incommunicado because he’s on a youth group service trip), but I haven’t called because I am trying to make my phone battery last through the whole week. It sounds like they are doing just fine.

I hiked most of the day solo today, because Tim went on ahead to get past the church boys. I actually kind of liked to hike on-and-off with them throughout the day, because they are funny and they remind me of my Joe.

Campsite Near US 321 to Vandeventer Shelter

Appalachian Trail, 9.1 miles

As we hoped, there was a faucet at Watauga Lake, so we cameled up. It was nice to have plenty of water for our long climb up to Vandeventer.

Today I lost Tim for about two hours. We came to a place where the trail diverged a couple different ways, and we were both scoping around and looking at maps for a minute. When I looked up, I thought he had gone ahead of me, but he had actually stopped to check out one of the side trails. Not knowing this, off I went toward the white blazes, pushing hard to try to catch up with him, not realizing I had actually left him behind me. We caught up with each other about four miles later at a muddy spring just shy of Watauga Dam Road. Though I like Tim’s company, I can’t say I minded hiking solo for a little bit. I do love to be alone in the woods.

We gained a lot of elevation north of Watauga Dam, so it was definitely another long and challenging day. We stopped for a fiver at the dam(n) access road and met a few guys from Georgia who were really nice and funny. Sounds like they will be hiking pretty much the same itinerary as we are this week, so I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of them as the week goes on.

I became the recipient of some awesome trail magic this afternoon. When we arrived at Vandeventer Shelter, we chatted with two thru-hikers who were resting before pushing on to the rest of their 20-some mile day. The topic of my lost sandals came up, and without hesitation the one dude unclipped his crocs from his pack and handed them to me! I was like, “Wha? No way! You need these!” But he insisted he never wears them and was planning to pick up some flip-flops in Damascus anyway. I’m telling you, I was giddy with excitement over these battered up plastic shoes, no matter that they are men’s size 12. My feet were so blissfully happy to get out of my boots! Later I found out the guy’s trail name is “Mom.” Totally makes sense.

Around 4pm, two groups of kids showed up at the shelter with guides. There is a group of girls heading southbound, and a group of boys going northbound. They are all between 12 and 15 and they’re simultaneously adorable and annoying (the girls tend to do a lot squealing and screaming). A few are teary-eyed because of blisters, so we gave them some bodyglide and moleskin to take the edge off. My thru-hiker friend (“Mom”) helpfully gave them some candy and then went on his way toward Damascus. The kids are all from a big church in Florida and they’re doing a trip through a ministry called Wilderness Trail. The boys will stay here at Vandeventer tonight and the girls still have a ways to go, as they’re shooting for Watauga Lake before nightfall. (Good on 'em... the poor things are doing a 12-mile day and seem a bit ill-prepared.)

The shelter is pretty crowded tonight, and there are quite a few other hikers trickling in still. Right now it’s 8pm and I think there are about 20 people around. Tim and I are tenting again. I usually prefer shelters, but since we have the tent anyway, and there are so many people about, the tent will do just fine. Also Tim doesn’t care for the shelters because the possibility of mice kind of freaks him out.

There is water here, but it’s almost half a mile down a ridiculously steep side trail. Still, we need to really fill up because we hear that there won’t be a lot of good water north of here tomorrow.

The view here at Vandeventer Shelter is really pretty. I didn’t mention this to anyone, but this shelter was the site of a murder in the seventies. A solo hiker was killed with a hatchet(!) by a guy who wanted her fancy new backpack. Luckily Tim’s backpack is much newer and nicer than mine, so I feel quite safe. :)

Kincora Hostel to Campsite Near US 321

Appalachian Trail, 8.6 miles

We could not get out of Kincora fast enough this morning. Impressively, Tim braved the spiders all night and was understandably ready to scram by 6:30am. As was I, since the cats had crawled all over me all night as I slept half-sitting-up on a grimey, smelly couch near the woodstove. On the bright side, maybe the lingering smell of cats on my clothes will drive away any mice we encounter in the shelters this week.

After a quarter-mile hike down Dennis Cove Road, we were on the AT! It felt good to see those white blazes again! Within only a couple miles we came upon an awesome rock wall and the beautiful Laurel Falls. I swear it is like medicine to be out here.

It was a hard climb up to the top of Pond Flats. Harder than I expected. I sweated buckets all day long and am a little concerned about water. Water is supposedly very sparse for the next 12 miles or so, and I am drinking like a fish. I don’t have much left in the platypus tonight, but there is supposedly water available from a spigot at Watauga Lake, which is a quarter mile north tomorrow morning.

In the bad news department, when we stopped for the day, I put down my pack and made the devastating discovery that somewhere along the way, my sandals had come unclipped from my backpack and apparently fell out on the trail. This seriously messes up my comfort level for the week, because it means I won’t have any alternate footwear in the evenings when my feet need a break from my boots. I am so bummed.

The Road to Damascus, Part Deux

After a way-too-long hiatus, tomorrow I am back on the Appalachian Trail! My brother Tim and I drove five-hundred-thirtysomething miles to Damascus today, for a repeat attempt at finishing the section hike in which we were foiled by a blizzard last time.  

No chance of a blizzard this time around, as the forecast is calling for temps in the eighties and nineties all week.

We arrived in Damascus around 4:30pm to park the car and meet up with Lone Wolf, a guy I know from whiteblaze.net, who shuttled us to Kincora Hostel. Wolf (as his friends call him) is a cool cat. He’s like a blend of Duck Dynasty and Matt Graham of Dual Survival. The dude has thru-hiked the AT five times and loves the trail so much that 15 years ago he moved from his native Connecticut and settled in Damascus (the most storied trail town on the AT) to work at an outfitter and just be around trail people. We spent the 75-minute shuttle ride peppering him with all sorts of questions about his hikes.   Wolf delivered us to Kincora Hostel, where we are staying tonight in preparation for the beginning of our hike tomorrow.

Kincora is owned by trail hero Bob Peoples. Bob is legendary among hikers for his many years of AT trail maintenance and general bad-assery, as expressed by this graffiti penned by a fellow hiker on the wall of a nearby AT shelter.

While it was great to see Bob, his hostel was in really rough shape. And I mean really rough. Eighteen cats (no that is not a typo) were swarming around the main room when we walked in, and they immediately began circling our legs and hiking poles, meowing and hoping for a handout. Everything smelled like cat pee. We decided to investigate the bunkhouse out back to see if it smelled any better. I was relieved to find it didn’t smell too bad - however, as I was getting my stuff situated, Tim casually observed that “It looks like there’s a spider on your bunk.”

Well people, spider is really not the word for it. This thing’s leg span was as wide as a softball. It could have carried my backpack if it wanted to. When I took its picture, the flash made its (huge, scary, evil) eyes light up.

Tim rolled up a magazine and gave it three hard whacks, smearing guts and legs all over the bunk. When he scooped up its carcass with the magazine and flung the spider outside, it made an audible thud as it hit the ground.

I could have gotten over all this if that spider hadn’t had friends. But as soon as the first spider met his demise, we found another. And another. And another. And just when we thought we’d obliterated them all, I spied the biggest one yet, directly over my bed.

“That’s it,” I said. “I’m done.” I abandoned Tim and chose the cat-pee-smelling hostel over the spider-infested bunkhouse. Which is where I sit now, with cats crawling all over me as I write this. It’s going to be a long night.

Tomorrow’s supposed to be a good weather day, which is good because we are doing our steepest incline of the trip. Also, we will be tenting out in the open tomorrow night, instead of near a shelter, because the Watauga Lake Shelter (our original destination for our first night) is closed due to bear activity.